A method for protecting UAV command link transmission using pseudo-random frequency hopping based on a parametric oscillator

This article proposes a novel method for protecting UAV command link transmissions, combining jamming resistance and spoofing resistance through pseudo-random frequency hopping (PRFH) implemented by a Mathieu– Duffing parametric oscillator. The mathematical model of the chaotic regime is presented in detail, including the conditions for parametric resonance onset, computation of the Lyapunov exponent, and phase portrait analysis.A complete block diagram of the transceiver path is developed with a thorough description of all functional units and inter-block connections. An original algorithm for coupling the chaotic frequency sequence with the command signal in Fast Frequency Hopping (FFH) mode is proposed. A comparative cryptographic analysis against classical PRFH systems is carried out and the advantages of the proposed approach are justified.Keywordsunmanned aerial vehicle, jamming resistance, spoofing resistance, pseudo-random frequency hopping, parametric oscillator, Mathieu–Duffing chaos, Lyapunov exponent, phase portrait, command channel, synchronization This is an archival copy of the original publication in CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 4278 (Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Cyber Hygiene (WCH 2026), co-located with the Fifth International Conference on Cyber Hygiene & Conflict Management in Global Information Networks (CH&CMiGIN 2026), Krakow, Poland, June 25–26, 2026), pp. 147–157. Original publication available online at: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-4278/paper11.pdf Published under the Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).