Researchers at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia have secured a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) research grant to strengthen the security of intelligent multi-drone systems operating in high-risk environments.
The USD 1.8 million international collaboration addresses growing concerns about the vulnerability of automated, coordinated drones used for defence operations, emergency and disaster response, environmental monitoring and critical infrastructure protection.
The multi-year project, ‘Robustness against Adversarial Attacks for Intelligent Multi Drone Agents (RAID) is funded through NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Programme and brings together leading cryptography, cybersecurity, robotics, autonomous systems and artificial intelligence experts.
Professor Willy Susilo, Professor Son Lam Phung and Professor Casey Chow from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences will lead UOW’s contribution, with USD 382,500 in funding from the project, working with researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain, and project lead City University of London.
“The researchers will develop advanced artificial intelligence technologies that can resist adversarial attacks designed to trick or confuse drones, detect unusual or malicious behaviours in real time, and build multi-layer defensive architectures with sensor fusion and cryptographic protection,” UOW says in a media release. “It will target a range of threats including spoofing, signal jamming, data poisoning and physical interference, which could compromise mission outcomes or public safety.”
Project outcomes are expected to include open-source frameworks, benchmark datasets, secure integration guidelines and field-tested prototypes that will support international governments, industry and research communities in the safe deployment of intelligent drone technologies across both civilian and defence applications.
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Image: L-R: Professor Casey Chow, Distinguished Professor Willy Susilo and Professor Son Lam Phung. (UAW)