Alma Oracevic

Description

Hosting for talk titled: Shielding UAV Systems from Cyber Threats: Vulnerability Assessment and Tactical Mitigations

Abstract:
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), more commonly referred to as drones, are powered aircraft that are operated either remotely or via pre-programmed flight. Most modern UAVs rely on the GPS (Global Positioning System) to navigate and hover in place. GPS is a global navigation satellite system that provides location, velocity and time synchronisation. For many applications, GPS-dependent drones are safe for use, however, in the indoor environment, such as tunnels, silos or any other GPS-denied environment, GPS becomes unreliable, and drones become hard to navigate and are prone to crash. Additionally, one of the most common attacks on UAVs, for which we still have not found a mitigation strategy and solution, is GPS spoofing. The very recent example of intentional GPS spoofing that caused disruption of flights and jeopardized safety, according to Reuters, is a large-scale GPS signal interference that has been reported at airports in parts of European countries. The radio-based distance measuring equipment, previously widely used in aviation, is now used at these airports as an alternative approach for aircraft during GPS interference. This talk will focus on a rapid need for alternatives to GPS navigation and risk assessment of non-GPS drones through explaining all the attacks on GPS UAVs that my team already performed on our testbed and mitigation strategies that we suggest.

Period	28 May 2025
Visiting from	School of Computer Science, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Visitor degree	PhD
Degree of Recognition	Regional