UAT Signal Transmission Authenticity Reckoner (USTAR)

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) system provides increased situational awareness and is being considered as the cooperative tracking element of any Sense and Avoid (SAA) system. ADS-B has been designed with open standards and protocols which preclude typical authentication mechanisms involving encryption keys and digital signatures that can be deployed to prevent unauthorized and malicious usage. ADS-B can thus be anonymously spoofed/jammed to deny airspace to other aircraft including those on DoD missions or may experience interference from unintended interrogation responses. Under this effort, we propose to develop a novel approach that exploits the characteristics of ADS-B transmission signal in the 978 MHz band (Universal Access Transceiver UAT) to determine its authenticity. We will leverage our proven RF signal processing algorithms along with multi-target tracking filters to develop a message authentication system that is optimized for the UAT infrastructure. Phase I effort will evaluate and compare the various feasible approaches using metrics such as latencies and false positive and negative alarm rates. Phase II effort will implement a retrofit prototype system in collaboration with BAE and Raytheon that will demonstrate performance of the proposed algorithms using above defined metrics under actual air-traffic conditions and injected spoofed/jammed ADS-B messages.