ROS2-Based Simulation Framework for Cyberphysical Security Analysis of UAVs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a ROS2-based UAV simulation framework designed for testing cyber-physical security attacks and defenses, addressing the need for cost-effective, customizable, and replicable virtual testing environments.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, modular simulation framework based on ROS2 and Gazebo, specifically tailored for cyber-physical security research on UAVs, including built-in attack and control models.

Findings

Framework enables testing of various attack scenarios

Supports modular and customizable simulation components

Demonstrated utility through research use cases

Abstract

We present a new simulator of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that is tailored to the needs of testing cyber-physical security attacks and defenses. Recent investigations into UAV safety have unveiled various attack surfaces and some defense mechanisms. However, due to escalating regulations imposed by aviation authorities on security research on real UAVs, and the substantial costs associated with hardware test-bed configurations, there arises a necessity for a simulator capable of substituting for hardware experiments, and/or narrowing down their scope to the strictly necessary. The study of different attack mechanisms requires specific features in a simulator. We propose a simulation framework based on ROS2, leveraging some of its key advantages, including modularity, replicability, customization, and the utilization of open-source tools such as Gazebo. Our framework has a built-in motion planner, controller, communication models and attack models. We share examples of research use cases that our framework can enable, demonstrating its utility.