Iman Sharifi

Iman Sharifi

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

A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for UAS Traffic Management (UTM) and Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)

AIAA 2026 Conference Papers

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

AIAA SciTech Forum

Paper arXiv
Cite this paper
Taxonomy of sUAS security vulnerabilities across communication, navigation, perception, and system and software, with example attacks in each category.
Taxonomy of sUAS security vulnerabilities across communication, navigation, perception, and system and software, with example attacks in each category.

Abstract

The rapid growth of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) for civil and commercial missions has intensified concerns about their resilience to cyber-security threats. Operating within the emerging UAS Traffic Management (UTM) framework, these lightweight and highly networked platforms depend on secure communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) subsystems that are vulnerable to spoofing, jamming, hijacking, and data manipulation. While prior reviews of UAS security addressed these challenges at a conceptual level, a detailed, system-oriented analysis for resource-constrained sUAS remains lacking. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of cyber-security vulnerabilities and defenses tailored to the sUAS and UTM ecosystem. We organize existing research across the full cyber-physical stack, encompassing CNS, data links, sensing and perception, UTM cloud access, and software integrity layers, and classify attack vectors according to their technical targets and operational impacts. Correspondingly, we review defense mechanisms ranging from classical encryption and authentication to adaptive intrusion detection, lightweight cryptography, and secure firmware management. By mapping threats to mitigation strategies and evaluating their scalability and practical effectiveness, this work establishes a unified taxonomy and identifies open challenges for achieving safe, secure, and scalable sUAS operations within future UTM environments.

Cite

I. Sharifi, M. Ghazanfari, A. Taye, P. Wei, M. Ahmed, H. T. Kim, M. Ghasemi, V. Gupta, et al. (2026). "A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for UAS Traffic Management (UTM) and Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)." AIAA SciTech Forum, 2026.

@inproceedings{sharifi2026survey,
  title     = {A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for UAS Traffic Management (UTM) and Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)},
  author    = {Sharifi, Iman and Ghazanfari, Mahyar and Taye, Abenezer and Wei, Peng and Ahmed, Maheed and Kim, Hyeong Tae and Ghasemi, Mahsa and Gupta, Vijay and Dahle, Noah W. and Canady, Robert and Diaz-Gonzalez, Abel and Coursey, Austin and Bjorkman, Bryce and Lemieux-Mack, Cailani and Ward, Bryan and Koutsoukos, Xenofon and Biswas, Gautam and Herencia-Zapana, Heber and Hasan, Saqib and Amundson, Isaac and Fotiadis, Filippos and Topcu, Ufuk and Lu, Junchi and Chen, Alfred and Aryal, Nischal and Ibrahim, Amer and Ras, Abdul Kareem and Shirkhodaie, Amir},
  booktitle = {AIAA SciTech 2026 Forum},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.2514/6.2026-2892}
}