G2RHA:Group-to-Route Handover Authentication Scheme for Mobile Relays in LTE-A High-Speed Rail Networks

Abstract

The introduction of mobile relay node (MRN) in long-term evolution advanced high-speed rail networks is an attractive method to provide uninterrupted connectivity for the group of user equipments on board. However, MRNs still suffer from frequent handovers and several security threats due to several rounds of message exchange and the insecure air interface between MRNs and donor eNBs (DeNBs). In this paper, we propose a group-to-route handover authentication scheme based on trajectory prediction for mobile relays. By our scheme, all of the DeNBs deployed along the trajectory can be formed a route-DeNB group and all of the MRNs deployed in the same train can construct a MRN group. Compared with the current 3GPP standards and other related schemes, our scheme can accomplish the mutual authentication and key agreement between the MRN group and the target DeNB with ideal efficiency in terms of authentication signaling overhead, bandwidth consumption, and computational cost. Security analysis by using the BAN logic and formal verification tool Scyther show that our scheme can work correctly and withstand several protocol attacks.