Software Instrumentation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for HPEM Effects Detection

Unmanned aerial vehicles are spreading and their malicious use considered as a plausible threat against critical infrastructures. Their neutralization is of high interest for security aware organizations and high power directed energy weapons have been proposed. Therefore, the analysis of the susceptibility of such devices is of fundamental interest for both offensive and defensive purposes. Many studies were devoted to detecting the effects of electromagnetic interference on electronic devices and a recently proposed approach as shown to provide insight on the impact of hardware effects at the software level on tested targets. In this study, the application of this approach on a civilian unmanned aerial vehicle is proposed, consisting of designing and running specific software on the target in order to monitor well chosen observables during susceptibility testing. The methodology to run arbitrary software and to identify interesting observables is detailed. Interesting effects were detected, opening the scope to both neutralization and hardening strategies.

1. Introduction

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are getting more and more deployed for both military and civilian applications. As some categories of UAVs are available to the public, the possibility of using them for malicious purposes is considered as a realistic threat and the problem of their neutralization is of high interest for security aware organizations. Among the solutions considered to take them down, like using hawks or traditional ballistic weapons, high power electromagnetic (HPEM) directed energy weapons have been proposed [1]. Therefore, the analysis of the electromagnetic (EM) susceptibility of specific UAVs, and particularly the characterization and the analysis of the effects of intentional EM interference (IEMI), is of fundamental interest for both offensive and defensive purposes [2].