Unmanned Systems Technology 002 | Scion SA-400 | Commercial UAV Show report | Vision sensors | Danielson Trident I Security and safety systems | MIRA MACE | Additive manufacturing | Marine UUVs

56 A s autonomous systems move increasingly into the realm of commercial UAVs and driverless cars, so the focus on their security and safety has come to the fore, as it becomes apparent that there are significant gaps in both, and that a system that is not secure is of course not safe. The challenges of making unmanned systems secure and safe come from many directions. There is still work to do to make sure they perform in a predictable and acceptable way in all situations, and these safety scenarios vary from platform to platform. The safety case for UAVs in the air is different from that for autonomous cars, and different again for maritime and agricultural equipment. UAVs operating in a desert war zone, for example, have a very different set of requirements from an autonomous aircraft in civilian airspace or one used for monitoring farmland. Similarly, the requirements for a driverless car operating on a motorway are different from those for an autonomous tractor or combine harvester. One recent example of a safety failure is the UAV that crashed in Iraq and was captured by Islamic State fighters. The UAV lost its GPS connection and so did not have accurate position data. The safety case for this eventuality was for it to return to base, which was fine, except that the last noted base was in Belgium. Returning to that base, rather than the local one, meant the UAV ran out fuel, crashed and was captured. The safety of an autonomous system can also be compromised by malicious hacking. This can range from hacking How do you ensure an unmanned system is secure and safe? Nick Flaherty reports Spring 2015 | Unmanned Systems Technology Stable platform MIRA’s cooperative car project is a key part of a new cyber security initiative