In October Dr. John Valasek reached a career milestone by presenting at his 100th invited seminar/lecture/panelist.
Chronologically:
#1 “Fighter Agility Metrics, Research, and Test,” Lockheed Advanced Development Projects Division (Skunk Works), Burbank, CA, 13 July 1990.
#100 “Multiple-Time-Scale Nonlinear Output Feedback Control of Systems With Model Uncertainties,” Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 9 October 2024.
Congratulations Dr. Valasek!
Ph.D. student Garrett Jares and Dr. John Valasek of VSCL published the paper “Control Acquisition Attack of Aerospace Systems via False Data Injection,” in Journal of Aerospace Information Systems.
The cyber threat to aerospace systems has been growing rapidly in recent years with several real-world and experimental cyberattacks observed. This growing threat has prompted investigation of cyber-attack and defense strategies for manned and unmanned air systems, spacecraft, and other aerospace systems. The work in this paper seeks to further understand these attacks by introducing and developing a novel cyberattack for autonomous aerospace systems. The problem faced by the attacker is posed and discussed analytically using false data injection of state measurements to exploit the vehicle’s onboard controller to take control of the system. It is shown that the attacker can utilize traditional control techniques to exert control over the system and eliminate the control of the victim by intercepting and modifying the vehicle’s measurement data. The attacker is able to accomplish this objective without any prior knowledge of the system’s plant, controller, or reference signal. The attack is demonstrated on the elevator-to-pitch-attitude-angle dynamics of a Cessna T-37 aircraft model. It is shown to be successful in eliminating the victim’s control influence over the system and driving the system to its own target state.
This publication is part of VSCL’s ongoing work in the area of cybersecurity. The article can be viewed at https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/full/10.2514/1.I011199.
Garrett Jares (B.S. Computer Science, Texas A&M University) successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Control Acquisition Attack of Feedback Control System by False Data Injection”. Garrett is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support his research in Aerospace Cybersecurity. Garrett has accepted a position as a Research Engineer with Southwest Research Institute. He is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Cybersecurity Working Group, and his main research interests include cybersecurity and cryptography applied to air and space systems. Congratulations Garrett, all of VSCL is very proud of you and your accomplishments!
VSCL Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D. student Garrett Jares has joined the AIAA Aerospace Cybersecurity Working Group (ACWG). The ACWG is involved with aerospace cybersecurity within the overall vision and mission of AIAA. It is composed of cybersecurity interested members from across the AIAA and provides opportunities to educate those involved with conceptualization, design, development, testing, deployment, operations, maintenance, and management of aerospace systems. ACWG seeks to engage in active information exchange among those involved in aerospace related cybersecurity, documenting the results, and making those results available to the broader aerospace systems community. The goal of the working group is to enable organizations to improve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of aerospace systems and data.
Garrett is a recipient of the 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which is supporting his doctoral dissertation on investigating cyber-attacks designed that are designed to take control of an aircraft by targeting the vehicle’s sensor data. This research will help identify and better understand the vulnerabilities in current systems and develop safeguards against such attacks. Garrett is a recipient of the Crawford & Hattie Jackson Foundation Scholarship, the Edward C. Clay ’47 Memorial Scholarship, and the 2018 Lechner Graduate Fellowship.
