BALANCING FLIGHT STABILITY AND DATA SECURITY

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) now depend on cryptography to protect their telemetry and command links from interception and spoofing. But the microcontrollers inside UAVs have very limited resources, and this creates a problem that affects both the software and the physical aircraft. Standard encryption algorithms need a lot of processing power, memory, and energy. This raises power consumption, which calls for heavier batteries, and heavier batteries shorten flight endurance. There is a bigger concern too. When the CPU spends too much time on cryptography, it processes sensor data and motor commands late. Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control loops have to run at high frequencies to keep the aircraft stable, so this delay shows up in the real world as actuator jitter, unstable flight paths, and a higher risk of collisions. This paper reviews Lightweight Cryptography (LWC) algorithms in a systematic way and asks whether they are practical for UAV embedded systems. We bring together recent experimental results and compare the trade-off between security strength and mechatronic performance. The metrics we look at are CPU utilization, memory footprint, bus load, and power consumption in microjoules. The review shows the exact latency levels at which data security starts to harm aerodynamic stability. It also offers a framework for choosing the best LWC solution for the next generation of autonomous flight systems.