Automated VuLnerability Assessment and Risk Mitigation for Future Aviation Systems Safety, ALARM

The integration and digital connection of National Airspace System (NAS) with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) provides more pathways for hackers to attack the aircraft. To address this critical need, University Technical Services, Inc. (UTS) proposes to develop an automated vulnerability assessment and risk mitigation (ALARM) system, to provide real-time cybersecurity vulnerability monitoring, assessment, and mitigation for the future aviation systems safety. The key innovation of this work is the development of real-time aviation systems monitoring, machine learning (ML)-based cyber threat detection, proactive vulnerability scan and assessment, dependency-based system-level vulnerability assessment and risk analysis, and aviation cyber threat intelligence for comprehensive security analysis and threat mitigation. The proposed technology, if successful, will achieve a breakthrough in the computational efficiency for aviation systems cybersecurity assessment and risk analysis.

The proposed technology addresses a critical need in NASA’s strategic goals to advance the state-of-the-art in autonomous flight operations and onboard systems cybersecurity. Within NASA, the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) (UAS-NAS) Project, the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) project, and the System-Wide Safety (SWS) project will directly benefit from ALARM.

ALARM's applications are for communications satellites, networks on-the-move, swarm drone networks, and UAV ops. This directly applies to Urban Air Mobility. All aircraft need to be protected from cyberattacks and malware, as they rely on 3rd party services and could be digitally connected. ALARM is positioned to support burgeoning UAS and UAM manufacturers, operators, customers, and regulators.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.