Research

Securing aircraft autonomy and the airspace

Our goal is to defend against cyberattacks on aircraft autonomy and airspace operations for eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and small drones in UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) Traffic Management (UTM).

Research questions

What we set out to answer

  1. TC1

    How can we identify and detect potential cyberattacks on aircraft autonomy and AAM/UTM software architecture?

    Raising industry awareness of the vulnerable links and components, and quantifying attack risk to individual aircraft and to the airspace.

  2. TC2

    How can we defend individual aircraft and airspace systems against cyberattacks?

    Informing investment in technologies and mechanisms that mitigate attack hazards and manage attack risk.

  3. TC3

    How can we harden AAM/UTM architectures and the aircraft autonomy software stack with security properties?

    Recommending security updates for system architectures, avionics software standards, and CNS infrastructure design.

Technical approach

Three integrated technical challenges

Addressing these interdependent challenges together delivers resilience and safety assurance for automated flight operations, even in the presence of malicious activity.

System context

AAM and UTM system architectures

Research core

  1. TC1 · Identify

    Identify vulnerabilities and model attack impact

    1. 1.1Identify attacks and vulnerabilities in aircraft autonomy and traffic management architectures
    2. 1.2Model attack impacts and quantify attack risks
    3. 1.3Monitor and detect attacks with machine learning

  2. TC2 · Defend

    Defend aircraft and the airspace

    1. 2.1Manage security risks in flight planning with belief sharing
    2. 2.2Mitigate attack hazards during flight at the individual-aircraft level
    3. 2.3Mitigate attack hazards for multiple aircraft at the airspace level

  3. TC3 · Harden

    Design resilient, secure infrastructure

    1. 3.1Harden the system architecture with security properties
    2. 3.2Assure the security properties of the integrated architecture
    3. 3.3Robustify communication between aircraft and traffic management services
  • TC1 → TC2Identified attacks and quantified risks
  • TC2 → TC3Risk and security requirements, mitigation algorithms
  • TC3 → TC1 · TC2System-level security guarantees

V&D · Cross-cutting

Validation and demonstration

  • Simulation testing
  • Hardware testbeds
  • Integrated live-virtual-constructive demonstrations

Standards

CNS infrastructure and avionics standards

The three integrated technical challenges, what each passes to the next, and their interaction with validation and demonstration, between today’s airspace architectures and the standards that govern them.

Aviation use cases

Eight use cases, cross-team by design

Each use case pairs a credible threat with defenses and brings together teams with complementary expertise.

Integration

How the use cases cover the research tasks

Each use case advances several of the nine proposal tasks, tying the three challenges together.

TaskUC-01UC-02UC-03UC-04UC-05UC-06UC-07UC-08
1.1Identify attacks and vulnerabilities in aircraft autonomy and traffic management architectures
1.2Model attack impacts and quantify attack risks
1.3Monitor and detect attacks with machine learning
2.1Manage security risks in flight planning with belief sharing
2.2Mitigate attack hazards during flight at the individual-aircraft level
2.3Mitigate attack hazards for multiple aircraft at the airspace level
3.1Harden the system architecture with security properties
3.2Assure the security properties of the integrated architecture
3.3Robustify communication between aircraft and traffic management services