Cyber Security Assessment of the Robot Operating System 2 for Aerial Networks
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Authors
Thulasiraman, Preetha
Sandoval, Sergio
Subjects
autonomous systems
cyber security
UAV swarms
ROS
cyber security
UAV swarms
ROS
Advisors
Date of Issue
2019
Date
Publisher
IEEE
Language
Abstract
The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a widely adopted standard robotic middleware. However, its preliminary design is devoid of any network security features. Military grade unmanned systems must be guarded against network threats. ROS 2 is built upon the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard and is designed to provide solutions to identified ROS 1 security vulnerabilities by incorporating authentication, encryption, and process profile features, which rely on public key infrastructure. The Department of Defense is looking to use ROS 2 for its military-centric robotics platform. This paper seeks to demonstrate that ROS 2 and its DDS security architecture can serve as a functional platform for use in military grade unmanned systems, particularly in unmanned Naval aerial swarms. In this paper, we focus on the viability of ROS 2 to safeguard communications between swarms and a ground control station (GCS). We test ROS 2’s ability to mitigate and withstand certain cyber threats, specifically that of rogue nodes injecting unauthorized data and accessing services that will disable parts of the UAV swarm. We use the Gazebo robotics simulator to target individual UAVs to ascertain the effectiveness of our attack vectors under specific conditions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of ROS 2 in mitigating the chosen attack vectors but observed a measurable operational delay within our simulations.
Type
Conference Paper
Description
Best Student Paper, 2nd Place
The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1109/SYSCON.2019.8836824
2019 IEEE International Systems Communications Conference (SYSCON)
The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1109/SYSCON.2019.8836824
2019 IEEE International Systems Communications Conference (SYSCON)
Series/Report No
Department
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
This work was funded and sponsored by the Office of Naval Research via the Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) at NPS.
Funding
Format
8 p.
Citation
P. Thulasiraman and S. Sandoval, “Cyber Security Assessment of the Robot Operating System 2 for Aerial Networks,” in Proc. Of IEEE International Systems Communications Conference (SYSCON) 2019, April 2019
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.