Open Access

ARTICLE

Design of Consensus Algorithm for UAV Swarm Identity Authentication Based on Lightweight Blockchain

Yuji Sang¹, Lijun Liu^1,*, Long Lv^1,*, Husheng Wu², Hemin Yin¹

1 Key Laboratory of Information and Network Security, Engineering University of the PAP, Xi’an, 710086, China
2 The School of Equipment Management and Support, Engineering University of PAP, Xi’an, 710086, China

* Corresponding Authors: Lijun Liu. Email: ; Long Lv. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2026, 87(2), 27 https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2025.073837

Received 26 September 2025; Accepted 11 December 2025; Issue published 12 March 2026

Abstract

Aiming at the challenges of low throughput, excessive consensus latency and high communication complexity in the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) algorithm in blockchain networks, its application in identity verification for distributed networking of a drone cluster is limited. Therefore, a lightweight blockchain-based identity authentication model for UAV swarms is designed, and a Credit-score and Grouping-mechanism Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (CG-PBFT) algorithm is proposed. CG-PBFT introduces a reputation score evaluation mechanism, classifies the reputation levels of nodes in the network, and optimizes the consensus process based on grouping consensus and BLS aggregate signature technology. Experimental results demonstrate that under identical experimental conditions, compared with the PBFT algorithm, CG-PBFT achieves a 250% increase in average throughput, a 70% reduction in average latency, and simultaneous enhancement in security, thus making it more suitable for UAV swarm networks.

---

Keywords

---