Secure Physical Layer Communications for Low-Altitude Economy Networking: A Survey

Abstract: The Low-Altitude Economy Networking (LAENet) is emerging as a transformative paradigm that enables an integrated and sophisticated communication infrastructure to support aerial vehicles in carrying out a wide range of economic activities within low-altitude airspace. However, the physical layer communications in the LAENet face growing security threats due to inherent characteristics of aerial communication environments, such as signal broadcast nature and channel openness. These challenges highlight the urgent need for safeguarding communication confidentiality, availability, and integrity. In view of the above, this survey comprehensively reviews existing secure countermeasures for physical layer communication in the LAENet. We explore core methods focusing on anti-eavesdropping and authentication for ensuring communication confidentiality. Subsequently, availability-enhancing techniques are thoroughly discussed for anti-jamming and spoofing defense. Then, we review approaches for safeguarding integrity through anomaly detection and injection protection. Furthermore, we discuss future research directions, emphasizing energy-efficient physical layer security, multi-drone collaboration for secure communication, AI-driven security defense strategy, space-air-ground integrated security architecture, and 6G-enabled secure UAV communication. This survey may provide valuable references and new insights for researchers in the field of secure physical layer communication for the LAENet.