  Remote identification of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is becoming
increasingly important since more UAVs are being widely used for different
needs in urban areas. For example, in the US and in the EU, identification and
position broadcasting is already a requirement for the use of drones. However,
the current solutions do not validate the position of the UAV but its identity,
while trusting the given position. Therefore, a more advanced solution enabling
the proof of location is needed to avoid spoofing. We propose the combination
of a permissioned blockchain managed by public authorities together with
UWB-based communication to approach this. Specifically, we leverage the
identity management tools from Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source permissioned
blockchain framework, and ultra-wideband (UWB) ranging, leading to situated
communication (i.e., simultaneous communication and localization). This
approach allows us to prove both the UAV identity and also the location it
broadcasts through interaction with ground infrastructure in known locations.
Our initial experiments show that the proposed approach is viable and UWB
transceivers can be used for UAVs to validate both their identity and position
with ground infrastructure deployed in known locations.
