Research Area 19: Cyber Resiliency Security Research for Precision-Guided Munitions

The AFRL’s Weapon Cyber program is seeking cyber survivability (cybersecurity and cyber resilience integrated) research concepts and approaches that will enhance mission assurance properties of munition system architectures, including embedded real-time, inter and intra-weapon networking and communication, and solutions in the area of assured autonomy for ground and flight systems. Zero Trust capabilities and approaches for sensors, seekers, or guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) within weapon systems. Concepts and technologies that enhance the trust/authenticity, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data at rest, in transit, or in use.
The development of tools and techniques, for physical and digital, that enhance the ability to verify and validate security concepts and technologies, as well as assess their performance impact within a relevant simulated mission context are also sought. Solutions of interest can be hardware, software, or algorithms/protocols and must be robust for use in real-time, safety-of-life-critical aviation systems. Example topics of interest include, but are not limited to, radio frequency (RF) exploitation, multi collaborative root of trust, formal methods, privacy, authentication/authorization, hardware/software assurance, physics-based security, wireless communications, network security, security architectures, and secure munitions-specific algorithms (sensor fusion, GNC, etc.). Solutions focused on detection and/or monitoring are generally ineffective for munitions applications.