Secure supervisory architecture for smart & autonomous vehicles

It is clear that in a not a too distant future, our roads and highways are likely to have more and more of smart and autonomous vehicles (SAVs), which would be capable of driving themselves, requiring less or even no human oversight behind the wheel.

The focus of this PhD project is on the security technologies required in the infrastructure and in the SAVs that would enable authorities to govern, protect and regulate SAVs access to the public road network.

The project outcomes can help formulate policies and guidelines that can be used to develop regulations ensuring the safety and legitimacy of SAVs on public road infrastructures.

Participants

• University of Newcastle
• Transport for NSW
  

Project background

Over the past decade, the technology behind SAVs has advanced significantly, and trials of ‘driverless cars’ have been underway for several years. So much so, that governments across the world are already in discussions with manufacturers and regulators about how and when they may be legally permitted on public roads. However, as the area receives more focus, several major technical and policy challenges arise.

This PhD project is concerned with the design of security mechanisms and functionalities needed both in the infrastructure and in the SAVs, which would enable dynamic and secure management and governance of the SAVs on public road networks.

The motivation of this research proposal is to create an environment to empirically investigate how a SAV authorisation system architecture can help to assist the public and private sector with future licencing regimes and regulation policy settings, as well as providing a foundation for ongoing SAV security standardisation developments.

This study will build upon existing knowledge on cyber-physical systems, automated vehicles, human-in-the-control-loop supervision, cloud-based methods for networked vehicles and service-oriented architectures.

Project objectives

The objective of this project is to develop an authorisation systems architecture for SAVs and a cloud-based supervisory security service for SAV location identification, authorisation, licensing, and controls.
This would enable road authorities to govern, protect and regulate SAV access to the public road network. The outcomes from the project can therefore assist with the formulation of policies and guidelines that can be used to frame future regulations to ensure the safety and legitimacy of SAVs on public road infrastructures.

Possible research questions include:

• What functions and mechanisms are needed for moving the current paradigm in vehicle management (e.g., used in identification, registration, and licencing) to a virtualised platform set within a cyber-physical system architecture?
• What functions and mechanisms that the SAVs should have for them to be effectively supervised ensuring safety when accessing public road network?
• What functions and mechanisms will be required at the infrastructure to provide authorised, regulated, and secure SAV access to the public road network?
• What methods and mechanisms will be required to avoid unauthorised intrusions and behaviour by rogue SAVs?
• What are the authorities and their functions needed to develop and manage policies and guidelines for effective management of SAVs on public road infrastructures?

Please note …

This page will be a living record of this project. As it matures, hits milestones, etc., we’ll continue to add information, links, images, interviews and more. Watch this space!