Adaptive Cyber-Defense for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Modular Simulation Model with Dynamic Performance Management

In light of escalating cyber threats, this study tackles the cybersecurity challenges in UAV systems, underscoring the limitations of static defense mechanisms. Traditional security approaches fall short against the sophisticated and evolving nature of cyber-attacks, particularly for UAVs that depend on real-time autonomy. Addressing this deficiency, we introduce an adaptive modular security system tailored for UAVs, enhancing resilience through real-time defensive adaptability. This system integrates scalable, modular components and employs machine learning techniques—specifically, neural networks and anomaly detection algorithm to improve threat prediction and response. Our approach marks a significant leap in UAV cybersecurity, departing from static defenses to a dynamic, context-aware strategy. By employing this system, UAV stakeholders gain the flexibility needed to counteract multifaceted cyber risks in diverse operational scenarios. The paper delves into the system's design and operational efficacy, juxtaposing it with conventional strategies. Experimental evaluations, using varied UAV scenarios, measure defense success rates, computational efficiency, and resource utilization. Findings reveal that our system surpasses traditional models in defense success and computational speed, albeit with a slight increase in resource usage a consideration for deployment in resource-constrained contexts. In closing, this research underscores the imperative for dynamic, adaptable cybersecurity solutions in UAV operations, presenting an innovative and proactive defense framework. It not only illustrates the immediate benefits of such adaptive systems but also paves the way for ongoing enhancements in UAV cyber defense mechanisms

Optimal Trajectory Planning for Cinematography with Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper presents a method for planning optimal trajectories with a team of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) performing autonomous cinematography. The method is able to plan trajectories online and in a distributed manner, providing coordination between the UAVs. We propose a novel non-linear formulation for this challenging problem of computing multi-UAV optimal trajectories for cinematography; integrating UAVs dynamics and collision avoidance constraints, together with cinematographic aspects like smoothness, gimbal mechanical limits and mutual camera visibility. We integrate our method within a hardware and software architecture for UAV cinematography that was previously developed within the framework of the MultiDrone project; and demonstrate its use with different types of shots filming a moving target outdoors. We provide extensive experimental results both in simulation and field experiments. We analyze the performance of the method and prove that it is able to compute online smooth trajectories, reducing jerky movements and complying with cinematography constraints.Comment: This paper has been published as: Optimal trajectory planning for cinematography with multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Alfonso Alcantara and Jesus Capitan and Rita Cunha and Anibal Ollero. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. 103778 (2021) 10.1016/j.robot.2021.10377

Autonomous Execution of Cinematographic Shots with Multiple Drones

This paper presents a system for the execution of autonomous cinematography missions with a team of drones. The system allows media directors to design missions involving different types of shots with one or multiple cameras, running sequentially or concurrently. We introduce the complete architecture, which includes components for mission design, planning and execution. Then, we focus on the components related to autonomous mission execution. First, we propose a novel parametric description for shots, considering different types of camera motion and tracked targets; and we use it to implement a set of canonical shots. Second, for multi-drone shot execution, we propose distributed schedulers that activate different shot controllers on board the drones. Moreover, an event-based mechanism is used to synchronize shot execution among the drones and to account for inaccuracies during shot planning. Finally, we showcase the system with field experiments filming sport activities, including a real regatta event. We report on system integration and lessons learnt during our experimental campaigns

Versatile Multilinked Aerial Robot with Tilting Propellers: Design, Modeling, Control and State Estimation for Autonomous Flight and Manipulation

Multilinked aerial robot is one of the state-of-the-art works in aerial robotics, which demonstrates the deformability benefiting both maneuvering and manipulation. However, the performance in outdoor physical world has not yet been evaluated because of the weakness in the controllability and the lack of the state estimation for autonomous flight. Thus we adopt tilting propellers to enhance the controllability. The related design, modeling and control method are developed in this work to enable the stable hovering and deformation. Furthermore, the state estimation which involves the time synchronization between sensors and the multilinked kinematics is also presented in this work to enable the fully autonomous flight in the outdoor environment. Various autonomous outdoor experiments, including the fast maneuvering for interception with target, object grasping for delivery, and blanket manipulation for firefighting are performed to evaluate the feasibility and versatility of the proposed robot platform. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study for the multilinked aerial robot to achieve the fully autonomous flight and the manipulation task in outdoor environment. We also applied our platform in all challenges of the 2020 Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Competition, and ranked third place in Challenge 1 and sixth place in Challenge 3 internationally, demonstrating the reliable flight performance in the fields