UAV-Relay-Aided Secure Maritime Networks Coexisting with Satellite Networks: Robust Beamforming and Trajectory Optimization

• Published in: IEEE transactions on wireless communications p. 1
• Main Authors: Yao, Yu, Xiao, Wenqi, Miao, Pu, Chen, Gaojie, Yang, Haitao, Chae, Chan-Byoung, Wong, Kai-Kit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2025
• Subjects: Array signal processing; Autonomous aerial vehicles; Eavesdropping; Low earth orbit satellites; Maritime communications; Optimization; physical layer security (PLS); Relays; robust beamforming optimization; Satellite-UAV-terrestrial networks (SUTNs); Satellites; Security; Space-air-ground integrated networks; trajectory design
• ISSN: 1536-1276; 1558-2248
• DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2025.3596136

Hybrid satellite-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-terrestrial networks (SUTNs) can provide maritime users with ubiquitous communication services. However, eavesdropping poses a significant challenge to the secure communications of SUTNs due to their wide-area coverage. In this paper, we propose a novel secure scheme for maritime communications, where a terrestrial-UAV integrated network coexists with marine satellite (MS) systems in the presence of an eavesdropper (Eve). Considering imperfect channel state information (CSI) for both the MS and Eve, we focus on the collaborative design of beamforming for the terrestrial base station (TBS), UAV, and MS, as well as the UAV's trajectory. A robust optimization problem is formulated to maximize the worst-case secrecy rate, subject to constraints on worst-case communication quality for each user, UAV locations, and TBS backhaul throughput. To tackle this intractable non-convex problem, we leverage the S-procedure, general sign-definiteness, and successive convex approximation (SCA) to propose a security solution that efficiently optimizes all variables using convex optimization techniques. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution, illustrating the impact of CSI errors and the secure performance enhancements achieved through joint trajectory and beamforming optimization.