Trusted Data Fusion, Multi-Agent Autonomy, Autonomous Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper presents a trust-based sensor fusion framework for multi-agent UAV networks, improving resilience and accuracy in adversarial environments by estimating agent trustworthiness with an HMM approach.

Contribution

It introduces a novel trust-informed data fusion method using HMMs for decentralized trust estimation in multi-agent UAV systems.

Findings

Enhanced ISR performance in case studies

Effective detection of malicious agents

Robustness against cyber-physical attacks

Abstract

Multi-agent collaboration enhances situational awareness in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Ad hoc networks of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allow for real-time data sharing, but they face security challenges due to their decentralized nature, making them vulnerable to cyber-physical attacks. This paper introduces a trust-based framework for assured sensor fusion in distributed multi-agent networks, utilizing a hidden Markov model (HMM)-based approach to estimate the trustworthiness of agents and their provided information in a decentralized fashion. Trust-informed data fusion prioritizes fusing data from reliable sources, enhancing resilience and accuracy in contested environments. To evaluate the assured sensor fusion under attacks on system/mission sensing, we present a novel multi-agent aerial dataset built from the Unreal Engine simulator. We demonstrate through case studies improved ISR performance and an ability to detect malicious actors in adversarial settings.