Security of Teleoperated and Haptic Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract

In teleoperated robotic applications such as robotic surgery, search and rescue robotics, bomb disposal, remotely operated aircraft and underwater vehicles, robots primarily serve as extensions of people. Human operators, often geographically distant, interact with robots through a communication network that may consist of diverse components. It is expected that these teleoperated robotic systems will generate immediate relief in scenarios where it is inappropriate or too dangerous for a human operator to fulfill in person, or simply because there is no experienced operator locally. The benefit of having geographically distant teleoperators comes, however, with a new set of problems that are not present in traditional settings. In many envisioned scenarios, including under-developed rural areas, disasters, and battlefields, network infrastructure may be limited. We may have to resort to a communication channel consisting of several components, including publicly available wireless or satellite networks, or even UAV-based ad hoc networks to exchange audio, video and other sensory information between the operator and robot. The open and relatively uncontrollable properties of these networks make teleoperated robotic systems more vulnerable to various kinds of attacks. Moreover, the uniqueness of teleoperated robotic systems introduces a tension between security and usability, which potentially makes existing techniques inapplicable. Therefore, it is crucial to develop specific tools and techniques for the teleoperated cyber-physical systems to make them secure without affecting their usability. In doing so, in this work, we focus on the human component in a teleoperated cyber-physical system and investigate the way to use the uniqueness of how each human user interacts with the teleoperated cyber-physical system in order to enhance security and reliability. In doing so, we focus on following two tasks: 1) Initial Authentication: Authenticate user's access to the teleoperated system. Minimize the probability of spoofing forgery passwords getting authenticated. 2) Continuous Authentication: i) Guarantee it is the authenticated user who is operating the teleoperated system without affecting the system usability. ii) Allow the detection of any abnormal action that caused by attacks. These tasks are fulfilled in the context of Haptic Passwords and Continuous Operator Authentication for Teleoperated Systems.