Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

City

Dayton

Abstract

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) crews of the future will encounter more than the traditional threats to their aircraft. In addition to air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, future conflicts will most likely include cyber weapons. While cyber weapons cancertainly cause physical damage to these aircraft, the potential also exists to turn the friendly RPA against their own forces. The goal of the Resilient and Assured UASSystems and Operations (RAUSO) program is to develop a cyber security module (CSM) that will detect and defend RPAs from cyber attacks. In some cases, the CSM will need to act automatically to defeat the threat. In other cases, the threat can be isolated and dealt with atan appropriate time in the mission. As powerful as the CSM will be, it will not be able to determine an appropriate time to address an attack. In order to maintain the best mission performance, the CSM will have to “negotiate” with the human crew as to when the appropriate time is to address an attack. A study was conducted to determine the most effective way to present relevant information to RPA crews to inform them of cyber attacks, courses of action, and mission impacts forsuccessful negotiation ofactions with the CSM. Fivetwo-person crews (pilot and sensor operator) executed simulated missions, and data were collected to determine mission performance degradation under two levels of cyber attack andhow that degradation was impacted bythe CSM. Alerting improved performance for both levels of attack.


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