Abstract: The space-aerial intensive network expands the traditional single-dimensional terrestrial network into a three-dimensional aerospace collaborative network, and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) group technology has become a new technical means for full coverage of complex areas. However, the issue of privacy and security in the processes of information transmission is becoming increasingly prominent. In this paper, we propose a privacy protection method based on matrix encryption, in order to solve the problem that the location privacy is easy to leak when the UAV group collects information. The cloud server because of the communication function is regarded as a trusted third party to carry out two-way information transfer between UAVs and the base stations. Taking advantage of its computing capabilities, the cloud server is used to encrypt information transfer and reallocate tasks randomly. The IDs and tasks are hidden and encrypted doubly according to the k-anonymous algorithm, so as to reduce the attackers’ guesses on the target location information. The algorithm can help the system fend off attacks within the group, because the cloud server can track the target and cancel the identity from the new task list when a malicious node is found. The entropy of IDs and tasks increase as the number of groups increases. Feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm are verified, which shows that the algorithm can provide effective protection for the location privacy of UAVs.

Key words: space-aerial intensive network, unmanned aerial vehicle, group, cloud computing, location privacy protection