UD professor gets hefty grant to develop drone security

As drones become increasingly popular in our skies, the stakes get higher for security concerns.
“Each of these vehicles … could be hijacked or deliberately controlled for malicious purposes, exposing us to unprecedented vulnerabilities,” Guoquan Huang, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, told UDaily.
He’s hoping to help prevent that with a $166,000 grant he just received from the National Science Foundation.
While many researchers are focusing on communication vulnerabilities, Huang said, he’ll be taking a different tack by honing in on securing drone navigation systems. Huang will work to develop algorithms that allow drones to detect abnormalities and then protect themselves from attacks.
The research will also allow for exploring new drone-based applications, like sending supplies to disaster zones, according to a UDaily story. Graduate and undergraduate students at UD will have the chance to contribute to the research, and K-12 students will also learn about robotics programming through the grant funding.