Autonomous arial vehicles in smart cities: potential cyber-physical threats

Autonomous aerial vehicles (AAV) are aircraft systems whose aircrew is replaced by autonomous computer systems and a radio link, thereby managed remotely from a ground station. This mode of transportation has recently been adopted as a means of transportation in a pioneering initiative by Dubai with more smart cities expected to adopt this mode of transportation shortly as it is believed to show potentials to transform urban transportation and future mobility in smart cities. The concern, however, is, the security of these systems and the smart city infrastructure they depend on for their operations. Certainly, the introduction of AAVs into smart cities raises many new cybersecurity questions that are in need of investigation and answers. It is, therefore, the purpose of this paper to explore potential cyber-physical security threats and the challenges that need to be confronted before this mode of transportation is fully integrated into the smart cities. A methodology to investigate on a large scale the cybersecurity attack vectors of such systems is presented based on four categories of systems that are critical to AAV operations, as well as their impacts and how to counter such attacks. What follows is a summary of the countermeasures that should be implemented to guarantee the safety of those systems.