Abstract
The Internet of Drones (IoD) is greatly developed and promotes many civil applications. However, it can still be prone to several security problems which threaten public safety. The issue of security poses further problems upon linking the IoD to the Internet, as its data stream is exposed to attack. For secure communication between drones, an effective route planning scheme with a major intention of accomplishing security is needed. With this aim, this study develops an enhanced search-and-rescue optimization-enabled secure route planning (ESRO-SRP) scheme for the IoD environment. The presented ESRO-SRP technique mainly aims to derive a set of optimal routes to the destination. In addition, the ESRO-SRP algorithm is derived by the integration of the quasi-oppositional-based learning (QOBL) concept with the conventional SRO algorithm. Moreover, the presented ESRO-SRP technique derived a fitness function encompassing different input parameters such as residual energy, distance, and degree of trust. The experimental validation of the ESRO-SRP technique is carried out under several aspects, and the results demonstrated the enhancements of the ESRO-SRP model over recent approaches. The ESRO-SRP model has provided an increased packet delivery ratio (PDR) of 86%, whereas the BRUe-IoE, ORP-FANET, UAVe-WSN, and TR-UAV Swarm approaches have accomplished a minimal PDR of 79.60%, 73.60%, 67.60%, and 63.20%, respectively.