Enhancing Security, Privacy, and Trust in Connected UAV Systems

With the increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in all aspects of our life, there is an equally increasing need to look into the security, privacy, and trust aspects of systems based on UAVs. In this paper, we present case studies of three different but related applications—unplanned evacuations, search and rescue missions, and urban traffic management. In each of the three cases, we describe the situation, propose a basic system structure to handle the situation, and discuss the associated security, privacy, and trust issues. Since all these applications involve a swarm of UAVs, rather than a single UAV, we also describe a system for collision avoidance among the UAVs.