BARNARD MICROSYSTEMS LIMITED

helping you keep an eye on things...

unmanned air ...

issues

Preventing  terrorists from using UAVs

Rocket firing jet.jpg

• Hizbullah Rearming
• Terrorists, criminals  and the UAV
• Physical security of the UAV
• Physical security of the Ground Station
• Flight control security on the UAV
• Security of the command and control uplink
• Unauthorised UAV activities

- from http://hstoday.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2825&Itemid=152

by Joe Charlaff

Wednesday, 9 April 2008

Terror network showing signs of preparing for escalation of attacks

At the inception of the second Lebanon war in July 2006, Hizbullah rained down nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel using Iranian Katyusha rockets (RAAD 40) with a payload of 45 lb each, and a range of approximately 45 miles. 

Although the Israel air force succeeded in taking out most of the group's long range rockets, made and supplied by Iran, the ground forces were unsuccessful in halting the short range rocket fire that paralyzed most of the northern part of Israel. 

Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly admitted that his organization is rearming and secretly transporting arms to south Lebanon - in blatant violation of Security Council Resolution 1701. 

Since last August huge quantities of arms, including Russian-made antitank missiles, short- and long-range rockets, small arms, mines and ammunition have been smuggled into Lebanon from Syria and Iran. 

According to senior Israeli defense officials, the Lebanon-based militant group has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of 300 kilometers (185 miles) which now threaten most of Israel. This enables the guerrillas to strike anywhere in Israel's heavily populated centers, and reach as far south as Dimona, where Israel's nuclear reactor is located. According to globalsecurity.org Iran has a supplied a number of UAV's capable of carrying surveillance equipment as well as explosives, to Hezbollah in recent years. 

The defense officials did not specify how many of the new rockets Hizbullah has obtained, but said that overall, Hizbullah now has substantially more rockets in its arsenal than the 14,000 it had before the conflict - likely more than double that number. 

According to a reliable source of information in Beirut, who must remain anonymous, the Iranian budget for Hizbullah is not public knowledge, but it is estimated to run from hundreds of millions to $1 billion, not counting the money that Iran gave Hizbullah to rebuild after the 2006 war.

While Iranian missile supplies to Hizbullah, either by sea or overland via Syria, are well known, according to the officials, there were also indications that some of the rockets in Hizbullah's arsenal - including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa - were built in Syria.

 At a recent briefing of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, a senior military intelligence officer told members that Hizbullah is rearming and preparing for a new escalation as a result of an anticipated operation against Israel along the northern border. He said that a great deal of activity had been identified and that the group is growing stronger on all levels, improving its systems, its units, and is receiving a substantial quantity of weapons and increasing its medium and long range missile capability.

 Fears have mounted in the defense establishment that Hizbullah may fly an explosives-packed drone into Israel in retaliation for Israel's alleged assassination of Imad Mughiyeh in Damascus early this year. During the Lebanon war in 2006 Hizbullah launched four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) at Israel. All were Iranian-made, have a known range of 93 miles, can reach approx 180 mph, and carry 99 lbs of high grade explosive.

 The rearming of Hizbullah could have far reaching implications for the US who have a presence in the Middle East. According to Dr. Ely Karmon, senior researcher at the Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) at the Inter Disciplinary Center at Herzliya, the moment Hizbullah feels it is strong enough it could take control in Lebanon ousting Siniora's pro- Western government. The Lebanese army would be no match for the terror group who now number some 30, 000 fighters. The US supports the present Lebanese government, and at present is showing its support with the presence of the USS Cole.

Hizbullah could misread the US military presence as an imminent threat. The assassination of Hizbullah leader Imad Mugniyeh on February 12, has put the Islamist party on high alert. Hassan Nasrallah used Mugniyeh's death to escalate his rhetoric, proclaiming an "open war" against Israel. If Hizbullah is convinced that a military confrontation with Israel and the United States is inevitable, the group may opt for a pre-emptive strike against Israel, or a final push to topple Siniora's government which would seriously test the US show of support.

Joe Charlaff writes on security issues from Jerusalem. He wrote, "Hardening the Holy Land," in the October 2007 issue of HSToday. He also writes for Monitor, which is part of Jane’s Defense Weekly group of publications in London.

return to top

Since UAVs can fairly easily be adapted to carry a bomb, or, be used for unauthorised surveillance purposes, measures need to be taken to make it as difficult as possible for unauthorised people  to misuse UAVs.

Categorisation

Since payload can be interchanged for fuel, using payload to determine categories can be misleading. Consequently, we suggest the categories are simply based on Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) in Kg.

return to top

LEVEL I and higher

• Someone needs to be responsible for the security of the UAV at all times.

LEVEL II and higher

• There is a documented  procedure for:

• which personnel has permission to move the UAV
• verification of the identity of personnel
• protecting the UAV at all times from theft or tampering
• detecting theft or tampering
• what to do if theft or tampering of the UAV is detected at any time

• The UAV should be stored in a secure area when not in use.
• The UAV is never stored with fuel on board.

LEVEL III

• The UAV is stored with some vital components removed, such as a vital battery and / or GPS unit
• The secure area where the UAV is stored should:

• be difficult for unauthorised entry: ie. it should at least 30 minutes for a determined assault by professionals to gain entry to the UAV
• be  monitored by CCTV
• have a battery powered burglar alarm based on IR + ultrasound that is connected via radio link (eg. mobile phone GSM) to a manned control centre

return to top

The " Ground Station" could come in a variety of formats:

• a ruggedised laptop computer and a joystick
• one or more ruggedised laptop computers + one or more joysticks in the back of a van
• one or more computer system + 19" communication and control racks in a dedicated truck

To secure the Ground Station against unauthorised use:

LEVEL I and higher

• someone assumes responsibility for the security of the ground station
• all computers need to be password protected
• the screensaver must be activated after one hour (maximum)
• on screen saver activation, a user needs to enter a password to reactivate the screen

LEVEL II and higher

• the command and control software needs to be hardware " dongle" key protected, with the operator(s) keeping the hardware " dongle" keys with them at all times. The need for a hardware protection key is advocated by Bill Gates for widespread use to verify the identity of a user. We agree with this approach.
• documentation on command and control procedures, including software use, is designated RESTRICTED or Commercial-in-Confidence, and protected at all times as such.
• Procedures for the protection at all times of the hardware security key are documented and disseminated to appropriate personnel

Level III

• the command and control station is located in a secure area (in an office, or in an equivalent office on the back of a truck) where unauthorised use of the software and controls can be and must be prevented.

return to top

LEVEL II and higher

• No Fly Zone Data must be stored in the firmware running on the core Navigation and Flight Control Microprocessor (FCM), which controls the UAV flight, even in the event of failure of the main computer card. Ideally this No Fly Zone data should be international in character.
• Before any flight:

• The flight plan from take off to landing is downloaded from the on-board computer  to the FCM, where the FCM checks the flight plan waypoints, to ensure no trespassing of the UAV over any No Fly Zone, as defined in the No Fly Zone Data, before validating the requested flight plan.
• The UAV will only fly on a flight plan that has been validated by the FCM.
• Any in-flight changes to the flight plan must be validated by the FCM before being accepted: otherwise the original flight plan remains in effect.

• All UAVs need to be supplied with a core GPS based No Fly Zone data set, which can not be read, or, altered by the user. This core data set is constructed from data for No Fly Zones throughout the world. The user can add additional No Fly Zone data and can subsequently remove only additional user defined No Fly Zone data.

return to top

LEVEL II and higher

Command and control uplink data:

• is encrypted with an algorithm that supports real time encryption and decryption, with at most a 10% increase in data payload
• is optionally spread spectrum by a factor of 10 to increase immunity to jamming and any other unwanted interference
• is Reed-Solomon FEC encoded at the transmitter and R-S FEC decoded at the receiver to detect any sudden increase in Bit Error Rate

Action is taken on detection of a significant increase in BER: switch to a different channel, or operate more autonomously, while monitoring current channel for a decrease in noise level to enable resymption of data uplink using the original channel.

LEVEL III

• spread spectrum by a factor of 10 to increase immunity to jamming and any other unwanted interference
• support dynamic tranmitter power control to ensure a fixed Bit Error Rate at the receiver derived from FEC
• optional use of Radio Direction Finding to only accept Command and Control data from a " known-good" location

return to top

The potential use of UAVs by terrorists and  criminals has to be prevented both by design and by the ongoing application of well thought through operating principles that deny access by  unauthorised users to any  UAV.

From http://english.aljazeera.net  and http://www.armscontrol.ru/UAV/mirsad1.htm.

Above and seven images below from presentation by Kemal Burak Codur on " UAVs as a threat to armed forces and a survey of countermeasures" at the UAV 2007 Conference in Paris.

return to top

© Barnard Microsystems Limited 2006 - 2008