Safe Return Journey In A GPS Spoofing Attack Scenario

In recent years the market of UAVs is grown significantly as well as the applications where drones are used. However, a successful UAV mission requires the usage of GPS. Unfortunately, since GPS signals are unencrypted and unauthenticated it is possible to recognize a issue from a cybersecurity point of view. In fact this lack of security facilitates the execution of many attacks and, in particular, the one called “GPS spoofing attack”. During this attack the drone is forced to change its own path, provoking an immediate land (or crash) of the target. The main goal of this master thesis is to aid a drone, assuming that it is under attack and it does not have the GPS available, to return to the starting point (home) safely, preventing any type of crash. From a certain point of view, we are building our Inertial Navigation System. For doing so the wind plays a role very important: it is the main reason for which the drone could change instantly its own position. Encouraging solutions will be proposed. Indeed, for monitoring and recording the onward journey, we have devised a highly effective solution that closely aligns with real-world scenarios, promising robust performance. However, in the case of the backward journey, certain solutions are proposed, although they remain untested due to logistical constraints and restrictions. Among these solutions, one demonstrates a global error of approximately 10%. On the other hand, the second solution exhibits the potential to navigate the drone back to its initial point successfully, emphasizing its ability to overcome the challenges associated with the return journey. These findings suggest promising prospects for enhancing drone navigation and resilience in various operational contexts.