*4.1. Prototype Implementation*

A proof-of-concept prototype of LightMAN was implemented and tested in a physical network environment. The microchain was implemented in Python with Flask [36] as a web-service framework. All security primitives such as digital signature, encryption algorithms, and hash functions were developed by using standard python library cryptography [37]. MAVLink [38] implemented a Software-In-The-Loop (SITL) simulator consisting of Pymavlink, ArduPilot, MAVProxy and QGroundControl. As a package of Python MAVLink libraries, Pymavlink was used to implement drone communication protocol and analyze flight logs. ArduPilot [39] is an open-source autopilot software that was used to simulate many drone types on a local server without any special hardware support. MAVProxy acted as the ground control station for ArduPilot, and QGround-Control provided the graphical user interface (GUI) for ArduPilot. We combined the SITL simulator and Pymavlink package to emulate UAM scenarios and collect MAVLink messages as UAV data.

Table 1 describes devices used for the experimental setup. Each validator of microchain was deployed on a Raspberry Pi (RPi) while a SITL simulator was deployed on the Redbarn HPC. The microchain test network contained 16 RPis. Regarding a test Swarm network, 6 service sites were deployed on six separate desktops that each had an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3 GHz and 4 GB of RAM. All devices were connected through a local area network (LAN).


**Table 1.** Configuration of Experimental Devices.
