The aviation sector has been leading the way in implementing new technologies and is currently adopting blockchain technology. Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that enables secure data encryption and storage through a distributed ledger system. This system ensures that multiple nodes can access the data hashes at any time. Any tampering or modifications result in a new hash, making it easy to verify the authenticity of data files and track the node where the changes occurred. The use of blockchain technology holds great promise for digital data security, particularly for digital transactions involving information or money. Like other industries that exchange information between multiple stakeholders, the aviation industry has found many applications for blockchain technology. Although the industry is progressing in adopting this technology, there is still a long way to go. This paper examines the possible application and adaptation the blockchain technology to air traffic management from a safety and efficiency perspective.
In the next generation modernization plan, the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system plays a pivotal role. However, the ADS-Bâs low level of security and its vulnerabilities have raised valid concerns. The main objectives of this paper are to highlight the limitations of legacy ADS-B systems and to assess the feasibility of using Format-preserving (F), Feistel-based encryption (F), with multiple implementation variances (X) (FFX) algorithms, for enhancing ADS-Bâs security. The offered solution is implemented in a standard software-defined radio (SDR) ADS-B to be utilized in real-time applications. Furthermore, a new proposed blockchain scheme is used as a secured database to manage the cipher key. The metric of message entropy is used to assess an algorithmâs ability to confuse and diffuse predictable ADS-B messages; correlation and serial correlation of plain data and cipher data are deployed to evaluate the proposed methodâs security level. The authors provide both MATLAB simulations and flight test outcomes to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach. Based on our security analysis, ADS-B information can be kept confidential through our scheme. The performance evaluation results reveal that the proposed scheme is achievable, compatible, and efficient for the avionics industry.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the various solutions and recommendations provided by researchers in applying the blockchain concept to different problems in aviation industry. It will discuss and highlight the specific approaches that leverages blockchain to mitigate the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) security issues. Furthermore, it introduces an innovative design and method to secure ADS-B data using a tamper-resistant distributed public ledger of authenticated flight plans and validates the position and other parameters of the associated aircraft identifier against the flight paths/routes that are stored in the blockchain ledger. Design/methodology/approach ADS-B is the key technology that is mandated by Federal Aviation Administration in USA by 2020. However, ADS-B data is neither encrypted nor authenticated. This paper proposes a novel solution using blockchain to secure the ADS-B data communications and in-depth analysis of existing solutions covering the following aspects: classification of various possible attacks on ADS-B. Presents various solutions proposed by different researchers regarding use of blockchain in aviation industry. Discuss a new solution to secure ADS-B using blockchain. Discuss the high-level architectural framework of the proposed and patented solution. Finally, presents the conclusions and future work scope. Findings While the main intention of this paper is to bring together all the existing solutions using blockchain to secure aviation and ADS-B data at one place, the proposed novel solution could contribute to maintaining security and privacy for aircrafts flying in the airspace at any point in time. Continuously securing the ADS-B data transmissions based upon the filed flight plans in real time can provide a mechanism to identify spoofed aircraft messages and communicate the same to ground stations for authentication of existence of such a malicious aircraft. Thus, this solution also differs from all the existing ones. Practical implications As aviation industry is in its infancy stage in implementing blockchain-based solutions, practical implementation of the proposed concept might take longer. Originality/value This paper is a comprehensive survey and review paper. To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, this is the first of its kind that presents various use cases for usage of blockchain in aviation industry along with a detailed review of existing proposed or implemented solutions using blockchain to secure ADS-B data. This can serve as an invaluable reference for the future researchers on this topic in both industry and academia.
In this paper, a blockchain-based trusted authentication model is proposed to secure the civil aviation ground-to-air communication. Considering the limited bandwidth and high latency of ground-air communication, the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is used to store avionics equipment information and server equipment information before the plane takes off. Through hash calculation, a unique hash value is obtained as the identity credential for each communication to authenticate. Obtain the key and address of each entity from Ethereum, and realize the registration of avionics system and server information by designing and writing Ethereum smart contracts, as well as the creation of certificates for the avionics system. During the flight, each ground-air communication needs to be signed with a private key for the sent information, and the public key is uploaded to the blockchain trusted storage. In addition, the server authenticates the signature and the result of the interplanetary file system query, and the smart contract authenticates the certificate to ensure that only avionics devices in the trusted domain with verified certificates can take up normal ground-to-air communication between the ground server and the onboard server. The simulation experimental results show that the model can achieve secure ground-to-air communication with low communication overhead and achieve trusted authentication of the avionics devices in communication.
Felipe Desiglo Ferrare, Derick Moreira Baum, Jorge Rady de Almeida, João Batista Camargo · 5 authors
Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) has been used in the most diverse applications, as electric vehicles and having a small size, they could land in small spaces and maybe in dense urban areas. Another type of vehicle used is the Unmanned air vehicle (UAV), which doesn't need user (human) control. The future of the development of this technology is the use of these vehicles to make deliveries and transportation of people and many others, having many vehicles making transit in small areas, leading to traffic jams. Despite this, most research focuses on scenarios with only one or a few agents. These scenarios, however, do not reflect the reality expected in the future, including multiple aircraft controlled by different entities, with diverse goals. These scenarios, mainly urban and used in dense areas, with many vehicles having to share the same air space, the normal Air Traffic Management (ATM) could not handle this new traffic, of hundreds of small and autonomous vehicles, in a central city region, this requires specific rules that have been called UAM (Urban Air Mobility). Bringing issues as safety and rules regarding the organization of this new system. This work aims to present scenarios using computer simulations created based on a multi-agent simulation tool or a Multi-Agent System (MAS). The MAS has the advantage that we could create and simulate more powerfully the existence of multiple vehicles (or agents) that act independently, as would happen in a real situation. This tool uses the Netlogo language and allows the modeling of multiple UAVs with stochastic trajectories created in a decentralized way, verifying how the model deals with conflicts and obstacles, highlighting some challenges and capabilities of UAM. Presenting some scenarios, using different parameters, such as aircraft by distinct capacities and in adverse climatic situations. As well, analyzes of results from these simulations conducted to assess the safety and the performance of the process. Using this tool, we propose some testing scenarios and execute some validation using multiple executions with different parameters as the number of planes and velocity to get results as the trajectory time and the number of conflicts. With this data, we try to show that we could estimate the airspace capacity and validate the safety of the given model used parameters. We will show some results of the execution of this tool and try to make some inferences and draw some conclusions based on these results.
Jing Li, Zhenzhen Peng, Ao Liu, Long He · 5 authors
With the extensive application and reform of Blockchain technology in the fields of finance and supply chain, the further development of Blockchain technology has increasingly attracted great interest of air transport industry. The Blockchain technology is gradually and deeply integrated with cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging information technologies to create ecosystem-level application of emerging technologies for civil aviation. In this paper, the Blockchain technology and its relationship with other emerging technologies are combed in detail. Then, the applicability of Blockchain technology to civil aviation is briefly analyzed. Finally, the challenges and future development direction of the Blockchain technology applied in the field of civil aviation are summarized and discussed.
Haitham Abu Damis, Dina Shehada, Claude Fachkha, Amjad Gawanmeh · 5 authors
The use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) for aircraft tracking and flight management operations is widely used today. However, ADS-B is prone to several cyber-security threats due to the lack of data authentication and encryption. Recently, Blockchain has emerged as new paradigm that can provide promising solutions in decentralized systems. Furthermore, software containers and Microservices facilitate the scaling of Blockchain implementations within cloud computing environment. When fused together, these technologies could help improve Air Traffic Control (ATC) processing of ADS-B data. In this paper, a Blockchain implementation within a Microservices framework for ADS-B data verification is proposed. The aim of this work is to enable data feeds coming from third-party receivers to be processed and correlated with that of the ATC ground station receivers. The proposed framework could mitigate ADS- B security issues of message spoofing and anomalous traffic data. and hence minimize the cost of ATC infrastructure by throughout third-party support.
In the aerospace industry, competition is high and the need to ensure safety and security while managing costs is paramount. Furthermore, stakeholdersâwho gain the most by working togetherâdo not necessarily trust each other. Now, mix that with changing enterprise technologies, management of historical records, and customized legacy systems. This issue touches all aspects of the aerospace industry, from frequent flyer miles to aircraft maintenance and drives tremendous inefficiency and cost. Technology that augments, rather than replaces, is needed to transform these complex systems into efficient, digital processes. Blockchain technology offers collaborative opportunities for solving some of the data problems that have long challenged the industry. This SAE EDGEâą Research Report by Rhonda D. Walthall examines how blockchain technology could impact the aerospace industry and addresses some of the unsettled concerns surrounding its implementation. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.
Marina Dehez-Clementi, Nicolas Larrieu, Emmanuel Lochin, Mohamed Ali Kùafar · 5 authors
The Aviation Industry has been booming for several decades and is expected to keep growing in the future. Therefore, Air Traffic Management (ATM) tools are likely to be soon overwhelmed by the demand. The Single European Sky ATM Research Program (SESAR) 2020, controlled by EUROCONTROL, intends to revisit the management of aeronautical information along its full lifecycle and across the whole European ATM system. The efficient sharing of information over large scale Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs) is a non-trivial problem that raises several challenges including data lineage, data consistency, access rights management and privacy-preservation. Part of the SESAR initiative, System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) project defines standards to enhance the security of aeronautical data shared among stakeholders. Most of its propositions include centralized or partially centralized mechanisms in order to enforce data confidentiality, and privacy. In this paper, we intend to discuss how blockchains can improve the sharing of sensitive data over the ATM system. More specifically, we use the example of flight data and describe a high-level Blockchain-based concept that mimics the decentralized nature of existing A TM system to provide a reliable, distributed storage platform for flight information.
Uniquely identifying flights and the exchange of information about flights between aviation systems in a global aviation network poses many complex challenges. This paper explores the possibilities, benefits, and challenges of applying Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to some of the challenges posed by global flight identification and information exchange.
We propose and implement a decentralized, intelligent air traffic flow management (ATFM) solution to improve the efficiency of air transportation in the ASEAN region as a whole. Our system, named BlockAgent, leverages the inherent synergy between multi-agent reinforcement learning (RL) for air traffic flow optimization; and the rising blockchain technology for a secure, transparent and decentralized coordination platform. As a result, BlockAgent does not require a centralized authority for effective ATFM operations. We have implemented several novel distributed coordination approaches for RL in BlockAgent. Empirical experiments with real air traffic data concerning regional airports have demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that considers blockchain-based, distributed RL for ATFM.
In recent years, there is growing interest in the ways the European aviation industry can leverage the multi-source data fusion towards augmented domain intelligence. However, privacy, legal and organisational policies together with technical limitations, hinder data sharing and, thus, its benefits. The current paper presents the ICARUS data policy and assets brokerage framework, which aims to (a) formalise the data attributes and qualities that affect how aviation data assets can be shared and handled subsequently to their acquisition, including licenses, IPR, characterisation of sensitivity and privacy risks, and (b) enable the creation of machine-processable data contracts for the aviation industry. This involves expressing contractual terms pertaining to data trading agreements into a machine-processable language and supporting the diverse interactions among stakeholders in aviation data sharing scenarios through a trusted and robust system based on the Ethereum platform.
We propose to enhance the security and transparency of aircraft maintenance records in the aviation industry through the use of blockchain technology. A physical aircraft maintenance logbook is susceptible to being lost or destroyed. A nonexistent aircraft maintenance logbook hurts the confidence in integrity and reputation of the aircraft. Furthermore, fraud can occur through forgery of FAA personnel signatures and the installation of non-official aircraft parts. The scope of this work is to develop a secure blockchain that can store aircraft service records and information in a digital distributed ledger. By keeping the maintenance logbook on a digital ledger, records can be stored indefinitely in a trusted environment with the integrity of records guaranteed. Additionally, to achieve being a distributed ledger, a consensus algorithm PoET is used to display the global state accurately to all users. The SAMR blockchain uses the Linux Foundations open sourced software âHyperledgerâ to facilitate an environment that mimics a real-world implementation. The Python Programming Language was used for SAMR's implementation of the blockchain logic through creation of a permission-based blockchain for holding the maintenance records.
Semi- or fully autonomous personal aerial vehicles (PAVs) are currently studied and developed by public and private organizations as a solution for traffic congestion. While optimal collision-free navigation algorithms have been proposed for autonomous robots, trajectories and accelerations for PAVs should also take into account human comfort. In this letter, we propose a reactive decentralized collision avoidance strategy that incorporates passenger physiological comfort based on the optimal reciprocal collision avoidance strategy. We study in simulation the effects of increasing PAV densities on the level of comfort, on the relative flight time and on the number of collisions per flight hour and demonstrate that our strategy reduces collision risk for platforms with limited dynamic range. Finally, we validate our strategy with a swarm of ten quadcopters flying outdoors.