Iman Sharifi

Iman Sharifi

Visiting Researcher at Stanford University | Ph.D. Candidate at George Washington University

A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Aircraft

AIAA 2026 Conference Papers

Mahyar Ghazanfari, Iman Sharifi, Peng Wei, Abenezer Taye, Bryan Ward, Xenofon Koutsoukos, Gautam Biswas, Mahsa Ghasemi, Vijay Gupta, Hyeong Tae Kim, Maheed Ahmed, Ufuk Topcu, Filippos Fotiadis, Alfred Chen, Junchi Lu, Isaac Amundson, Saqib Hasan, Amir Shirkhodaie, Nischal Aryal, Amer Ibrahim, Abdul Kareem Ras, Heber Herencia-Zapana, Noah W. Dahle, Abel Diaz-Gonzalez, Austin Coursey, Bryce Bjorkman, Cailani Lemieux-Mack, Robert E. Canady

AIAA SciTech Forum

Paper arXiv
Cite this paper
Physical and environmental threats to an eVTOL aircraft perception system: rain, fog, and illumination anomalies, camera feed spoofing, adversarial patches, and infrared or laser attacks.
Physical and environmental threats to an eVTOL aircraft perception system: rain, fog, and illumination anomalies, camera feed spoofing, adversarial patches, and infrared or laser attacks.

Abstract

This survey reviews the existing and envisioned security vulnerabilities and defense mechanisms relevant to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems, with a focus on electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Drawing from vulnerabilities in the avionics in commercial aviation and the automated unmanned aerial systems (UAS), the paper presents a taxonomy of attacks, analyzes mitigation strategies, and proposes a secure system architecture tailored to the future AAM ecosystem. The paper also highlights key threat vectors, including Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming/spoofing, ATC radio frequency misuse, attacks on TCAS and ADS-B, possible backdoor via Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), new vulnerabilities introduced by aircraft automation and connectivity, and risks from flight management system (FMS) software, database and cloud services. Finally, this paper describes emerging defense techniques against these attacks, and open technical problems to address toward better defense mechanisms.

Cite

M. Ghazanfari, I. Sharifi, P. Wei, A. Taye, B. Ward, X. Koutsoukos, G. Biswas, M. Ghasemi, V. Gupta, et al. (2026). "A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Aircraft." AIAA SciTech Forum, 2026.

@inproceedings{ghazanfari2026survey,
  title     = {A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Aircraft},
  author    = {Ghazanfari, Mahyar and Sharifi, Iman and Wei, Peng and Taye, Abenezer and Ward, Bryan and Koutsoukos, Xenofon and Biswas, Gautam and Ghasemi, Mahsa and Gupta, Vijay and Kim, Hyeong Tae and Ahmed, Maheed and Topcu, Ufuk and Fotiadis, Filippos and Chen, Alfred and Lu, Junchi and Amundson, Isaac and Hasan, Saqib and Shirkhodaie, Amir and Aryal, Nischal and Ibrahim, Amer and Ras, Abdul Kareem and Herencia-Zapana, Heber and Dahle, Noah W. and Diaz-Gonzalez, Abel and Coursey, Austin and Bjorkman, Bryce and Lemieux-Mack, Cailani and Canady, Robert E.},
  booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2026 Forum},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.2514/6.2026-2891}
}