Generation of Wheel Lockup Attacks on Nonlinear Dynamics of Vehicle Traction

TL;DR

This paper explores how an attacker with limited knowledge can induce wheel lockup in vehicles by controlling brake actuators, using a predefined-time controller and nonlinear disturbance observer, potentially causing severe accidents.

Contribution

It introduces a novel attack strategy on vehicle traction dynamics that does not require detailed knowledge of tire-road interaction, using advanced control techniques.

Findings

The attack can drive vehicle states near lockup conditions in finite time.

Simulations show the attack's effectiveness across different road conditions.

The method demonstrates a new vulnerability in vehicle brake systems.

Abstract

There is ample evidence in the automotive cybersecurity literature that the car brake ECUs can be maliciously reprogrammed. Motivated by such threat, this paper investigates the capabilities of an adversary who can directly control the frictional brake actuators and would like to induce wheel lockup conditions leading to catastrophic road injuries. This paper demonstrates that the adversary despite having a limited knowledge of the tire-road interaction characteristics has the capability of driving the states of the vehicle traction dynamics to a vicinity of the lockup manifold in a finite time by means of a properly designed attack policy for the frictional brakes. This attack policy relies on employing a predefined-time controller and a nonlinear disturbance observer acting on the wheel slip error dynamics. Simulations under various road conditions demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed attack policy.