Jamming a Multi-Hop UAV Relay Network

Abstract

In this paper, we formulate as a game, the dynamic interaction between a pair of transmitter and receiver (or ground stations) through a multi-hop relaying Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) in a hostile environment. We assume that the ground stations can concentrate their transmissions to the relaying UAVs. The UAVs relay their data to their ground stations destinations. Furthermore, we assume limited UAVs capabilities, i.e., without the ability of controlling the power level. This limited UAV capability leads to UAVs transmission to interfere with each other. The jammer is assumed to be a smart jammer that targets the downlink transmission from the UAVs to the ground stations. The ground stations strategically allocate the UAVs’ power level such that it is optimal to countermeasure the jamming attack and to limit the interference between the UAVs at the same time. We formulate the problem as a Zero-Sum game and the corresponding optimization problem as a linear program. We solve the game and find the Nash equilibrium (NE) through the use of Fictitious Play (FP) algorithm. Our results show that under linear jammer cost function, the jammer can severely disturb the UAV-ground stations transmission even with using low power levels.