Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Vol. 32, No. 2, November 2023, pp. 1177~1186 ISSN: 2502-4752, DOI: 10.11591/ijeecs.v32.i2.pp1177-1186  1177 Journal homepage: http://ijeecs.iaescore.com Enhancing safety communication in autonomous vehicles with hybrid elliptic curve digital signatures Ravi Kalkundri 1 , Rajashri Khanai 2 , Praveen Kalkundri 3 1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Karnataka Law Society's Gogte Institute of Technology, Affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi, India 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, KLE Dr. MS Sheshgiri College of Engineering and Technology, Affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi, India 3 Department of Electronics and Communication, Karnataka Law Society's Gogte Institute of Technology, Affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi, India Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Jul 4, 2023 Revised Jul 20, 2023 Accepted Aug 16, 2023 The autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a part of vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) technology which is gaining a lot of researchers' attention for making the vehicle smarter and safer. In VANETs, the vehicles transmit various types of messages, some are important in terms of human lives while others are for infotainment. These messages give various information to the driver so that the driver can take appropriate precautions on the roads. In this work, the main aim was to concentrate on the safety messages that are very important in VANET infrastructure. In VANET the information transmitted are open, hence it is very easy for any attacker to manipulate or change the critical messages. Hence, in this paper, we intend to implement security to these safety messages by encrypting the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) algorithm which is further optimized by ate pairing. The results have been compared with the traditional ECDSA in terms of throughput. By using the hybrid ECDSA, we increase the strength of ECDSA and still maintain the integrity of ECDSA, making sure that the authenticity of the vehicles and privacy of the messages is maintained within the VANET infrastructure. Keywords: Ate pairing Autonomous vehicles ECDSA Safety messages VANET This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Ravi Kalkundari Department of Computer Science and Engineering Karnataka Law Society's Gogte Institute of Technology Affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University Belagavi, Karnataka, India Email: ravi.kalkundri05@gmail.com 1. INTRODUCTION The automobile industry has been improving and growing significantly in recent years. Improvements like computer systems and automation of mechanical and manual functions have been incorporated into modern vehicles. Modern vehicles are incorporated with multiple features that help and assist the driver like lane change warning, self-parking, adaptive cruise control, and identifying obstacles/barriers in the middle of the roads during fog or night, which assist the driver that helps to reduce human efforts. These improvements in vehicles impose the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs). The vehicle has improved and grown tremendously in terms of technology throughout the years. Further vehicle's computational power and computerization of mechanical and manual tasks have been developed in autonomous vehicles, enriching the vehicle performance and information to the drivers [1]. The AV assists drivers in reducing the occurrence of