IntSHU: A Security-Enabled Intelligent Soft Handover Approach for UAV-Aided 5G and Beyond

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) play a significant role in serving as gNodeBs (gNBs), or user devices (UDs). However, considering the high data rates and low latency required by fifth generation (5G) and beyond, it is essential to maintain a reliable connection at UAVs, particularly due to frequent handovers. To minimize handover failures, the hysteresis margin and time-to-trigger (TTT) should be dynamically adjusted. Furthermore, to prevent vulnerabilities to threats, UAV and gNB authentication and secure communication should be addressed during handovers. However, available literature uses a learning-based approach to handover management in UAV-aided 5G networks, thereby neglecting security, or offers a handover authentication mechanism, but lacks a novel handover strategy. To fill this gap in the literature, in this study, we design an Intelligent Soft Handover for UAV-enabled cellular networks (IntSHU), a generative adversarial network (GAN)-based scheme designed for intelligent soft handovers in UAV-enabled 5G and beyond. IntSHU uses adapted hysteresis margins and TTT values, dynamically generated through an <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\epsilon $ </tex-math></inline-formula>-greedy policy. In addition, we implement a lightweight, physically unclonable function (PUF)-based message encryption and authentication scheme via blockchain for streamlined access control during handovers. The results of our simulation indicate that IntSHU significantly enhances network performance by facilitating reliable soft handovers.