TraCR Scholar Webinar - Mizanur Rahman

Cyber Resilient GNSS-based Navigation for Autonomous Ground Vehicles under Threat Uncertainties and Contested Urban Environments
Interest in autonomous vehicles for various critical missions is growing rapidly due to their significant safety, mobility, and environmental benefits. The use of autonomous ground vehicles for surface transportation itself promises to prevent more than 9 million accidents and 2 million injuries annually, conserve 7 billion liters of fuel and save more than 36,000 lives while reducing healthcare costs associated with accidents by $190 billion in the U.S. Current cyber-resilient PNT services solutions, which rely on GNSS, employ various techniques, such as INS, vision-based sensing, the utilization of LEO satellite constellations or terrestrial pseudo satellites. However, they are susceptible to unintentional interference, multipath issues, atmospheric effects, segment errors, and deliberate cyber threats, such as jamming and spoofing. This talk focuses on the deliberate cyber threats on GNSS-based navigation systems, specifically on intelligent spoofing attacks that jeopardize the operational safety of autonomous ground vehicles in urban environments. First, the nature and mechanics of a slow drift spoofing attack on GNSS-based navigation system will be presented to establish the foundational understanding necessary for developing effective countermeasures. Second, the development of a multi-sensor fusion framework that utilizes data from various onboard vehicular sensors will be presented to detect anomalies indicative of GPS spoofing attempts. Third, the potential of GIS and transportation landmark-based navigation systems will be presented as an alternative navigation solution in GNSS-contested urban areas.