Covert Cognizance in sUAS for Zero-Downtime Operation in Cyber-Contested Environments

Covert Cognizance is a disruptive technology premised on the zero-downtime operation of control systems in cyber-contested environments. It unlocks a hidden dimension, i.e., a blind spot, in process data that acts as an in-built information repository, capable of storing information to authenticate, remediate, and misdirect. This effort is a feasibility study on adapting the commercial software to small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) for insider threat detection, spoofing detection, autonomous self-healing, and outlier activity execution when jammed/spoofed data are sent between the ground control system and the sUAS. Specifically, the project team shall perform feasibility experiments using the AirSim drone simulator testbench where the communication link between the ground control system and the sUAS are spoofed. Then, the team shall identify the requirements for an embedded software algorithm in the sUAS and conduct additional customer discovery within the US Space Force and US Air Force to identify a target customer organization and end-user.