Abstract
Highly automated vehicles (HAV), whether ground, aerial, or maritime, rely on a steady stream of signals and information from external sources: signals that localize the vehicle and provide information about the road network, other nearby vehicles, larger-scale traffic, and state of the infrastructure and the environment. Currently, many deployed systems either trust the information implicitly, or at best perform basic sanity and consistency checks leading to little more than enabling or disabling the entire system. This includes a heavy reliance on PNT as location and timing information is central to many HAV operations. The potential impacts of radio frequency (RF) jamming and spoofing, interference with PNT sensor data, or interference with PNT augmentation or correction communications, on HAV functions are not thoroughly investigated, but they could wreak havoc in HAVs or result in passenger fatalities. In this project, thorough risk identification, threat assessment, and risk analysis studies will be conducted at the component, subsystem, and system level to understand the impact of interference on HAVs using risk and failure analysis methodologies and modeling and simulation tools. Approaches such as Attack Trees and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis are utilized for qualitative analysis of different PNT threats for HAV operations. The safety and functional impacts of intentional and unintentional PNT issues are explored. The quantification of threats and risks is accomplished by integrating the simulation models of PNT features with HAV functionalities through modeling and simulation. These functionalities include maneuvers limited to individual or multiple HAVs where V2X may play an important role. Academically available simulation tools were used to evaluate the PNT concerns in HAV operation.