A defense against attacks on unmanned ground and aerial vehicles

A University of Texas at Arlington engineering researcher is working on defenses that could thwart cyberattacks against networks of self-driving cars and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Animesh Chakravarthy, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), is the principal investigator on an approximately $800,000 U.S. Department of Defense grant titled “Resilient Multi-Vehicle Networks.” MAE Professor Kamesh Subbarao, and Bill Beksi, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, are co-principal investigators.

“If hackers find a way to affect 10 out of 100 self-driving cars in a given area, they might have an impact on all 100 cars because the 10 hacked cars would have a ripple effect on the other vehicles,” Chakravarthy said. “We have to make these networks of vehicles resilient to such attacks. This project is meant to detect occurrences as they happen, then provide countermeasures.

Chakravarthy and his colleagues also will attempt to determine costs associated with cyberattacks on automated vehicles, including how much time and money are wasted in traffic or in waiting for accidents to clear.

MAE Chair Erian Armanios said Chakravarthy’s research will be vital to the growth of unmanned vehicle networks.

“You need to ensure smooth and safe operations of those vehicle networks,” Armanios said. “The work of Chakravarthy, Subbarao and Beksi in this grant will achieve that.”