Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been applied for both civilian and military applications; scientific research involving UAVs has encompassed a wide range of scientific study. However, communication with unmanned vehicles are subject to attack and compromise. Such attacks have been reported as early as 2009, when a Predator UAV's video stream was compromised. Since UAVs extensively utilize autonomous behavior, it is important to develop an autopilot system that is robust to potential cyber-attack. In this work, we present a biometric system to encrypt communication between a UAV and a computerized base station. This is accomplished by generating a key derived from a user's EEG Beta component. When communication with a UAV is attacked, a safety mechanism directs the UAV to a safe `home' location. This system has been validated on a commercial UAV under malicious attack conditions.

Collaborative Control of Multiple UAVs for Wildfire Tracking and Monitoring, Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium (NVSGC) PI: Hung La, co-PI: David Feil-Seifer, Amount: $30,000, July 1, 2017 - April 9, 2018

CHS: Small: Collaborative Research: Spatio-Temporal Situational Awareness in Large-Scale Disasters Using Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, National Science Foundation PI: David Feil-Seifer, Amount: $166,666, Jan. 1, 2016 - Dec. 31, 2017

UGV-UAV Hybrid System for Unstructured Environment Exploration, NASA PI: Hung La, co-PI: David Feil-Seifer, Paul Oh, Amount: 83,523, Sept. 1, 2016 - Aug. 31, 2017