Dr Alma Oracevic

One of the main challenges in uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) traffic management is the ability to operate without GPS. Most modern UAVs rely on GPS to navigate and hover in place. However, indoors, such as inside storage tanks or silos, these drones become hard to navigate and are prone to crashing. This is also a problem for GPS-denied environments, which can be caused by GPS spoofing, cybersecurity attacks, or when GPS signals are degraded, for example at low altitudes in urban areas. Intentional GPS disruption has recently disrupted flights and jeopardised safety, according to Reuters, in a large-scale GPS signal interference reported at airports in countries including Finland and Estonia.  

A number of airports now use radio-based distance measuring equipment, previously widely used in aviation, as an alternative approach for aircraft during GPS disruption. Other navigation methods for non-GPS drones include LiDAR, simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) and ultrasonic sensors. While such approaches eliminate cyberattack threats such as GPS spoofing, the communication they rely on for information exchange and positioning still faces other threats. The DroneShield project aims to conduct a comprehensive vulnerability analysis of non-GPS UAVs, focusing on cybersecurity.