. 24/7 Space News .
CYBER WARS
DARPA's Software Defined Radio Hackfest Creates Solutions for Spectrum Challenges
by Staff Writers
Moffett Field, CA (SPX) Dec 18, 2017


A panel of DARPA judges looks on as Team Platypus Aerospace presents their solution to one of the "Hackfest Missions"-three problem sets designed to examine how SDR could be used to solve communications, computing, and control challenges at the intersections of cyber and physical technologies. The final day of the Hackfest gave all eight participating teams an opportunity to showcase their developments from the week for the judge's panel and attending SDR community members.

The DARPA Bay Area Software Defined Radio (SDR) Hackfest came to a close on Friday, November 17 at the NASA Ames Conference Center in Moffett Field, CA. During the weeklong event, over 150 members of the SDR community came together to discuss, innovate, and ideate around the future of software radio technology and its potential to address challenging communications issues that are emerging due to the increasingly congested electromagnetic (EM) spectrum and the proliferation of wireless-enabled devices.

"The DARPA SDR Hackfest was created to engage a growing community of SDR developers and enthusiasts from a diverse range of backgrounds and I believe we accomplished that mission," said Tom Rondeau, a program manager in DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), who led the event.

"The Hackfest provided community members with a place to interact with experts and explore new ideas around the potential for the technology, and our speaker series at the event challenged attendees to contemplate everything from the trajectory of the UAV industry to the challenges we must address to ensure the free and open sharing of software."

Throughout the Hackfest, eight pre-qualified teams from academia, industry, and the hacker- and makerspace-communities worked together to develop solutions to specific "Hackfest Missions." Presented to the teams on the first day of the event, the three Missions amounted to problem sets designed to examine how SDR could be used to solve communications, computing, and control challenges at the still-uncharted intersections of cyber and physical technologies.

Each Mission focused on the communications link between ground stations and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. These links are susceptible to breaking due to interference, EM congestion, or other communications issues.

In developing the Missions, DARPA's Hackfest organizers consulted with groups of military operators to ensure that various real-world scenarios involving radio and UAV technologies would be included. As such, it is possible that some of the solutions to these communications challenges that emerged during the event could progress toward real-work applications.

"The future use of drones-whether on land, in water, or in the air-will require far more coordination of the communications channels among all involved users. Trading off resource constraints of spectrum, processing power, and security risks, the Hackfest challenged teams to think through the whole stack from the application layer down to the physical," said Rondeau.

Hackfest teams were asked to tackle one of the three Missions throughout the week. The goal of Mission One was to find a way to enable communications between a ground station and a UAV with a blocked or obstructed communication pathway. Teams were tasked with using a second UAV to create a relay link for the ground station to the obstructed UAV. This first Mission simulated real-world circumstances in which communication links can be denied for any number of reasons-from physical barriers to deliberate or accidental EM interference. Two of the participating teams took on Mission One, leveraging a number of open-source technologies to extend communications between the ground station and the obstructed UAV.

"YeS DR, a team of cybersecurity experts from Parsons, added an authentication method to their solution that helped certify who communication packets were intended for-a unique approach that played to their strengths as cyber experts," said Rondeau.

"Team DROGON also attempted Mission One. Bringing experts from Raytheon BBN Technologies and SSCI to the Hackfest, the team took full advantage of the provided code by using the Linux kernel's BATMAN (Better Approach to Mobile Adhoc Networking)-a routing protocol that intelligently distributes information across a network-to rethink the mission as a network of nodes instead of separate ground stations and UAVs that were given different tasks."

In Mission Two, teams were asked to show that control of a moving UAV could be repeatedly transferred between multiple ground stations. This Mission was designed to mirror scenarios where detailed flight work is required but a pilot's visibility is degraded or limited due to, say, environmental conditions or changes in geography. This type of scenario is seen in civilian or disaster response operations where drones are employed. To jointly address Mission Two and One, one team sought to create a solution that considered every node in their system, whether a ground station or UAV, to be a network.

"Team Platypus Aerospace from Aerospace Corporate sought to address scaling problems beyond two or three drones by building a full mesh network solution with authentication and built-in encryption," said Rondeau.

"The solution the team developed to address both Mission One and Two could have applications for large swarms of drones where authentication of units within a swarm, as well as the messages passed between them, needs to originate from inside the swarm itself or its command and control station."

Mission Three challenged teams to find new applications for SDR-UAV systems through the integration of sensors and the seamless transfer of information between a UAV and a ground station. One goal of the mission was to create a solution that could help improve how ground stations and UAVs interact, whether by reducing signal latency, allowing for the management of multiple drones without confusion, or some other means.

Throughout the Hackfest, four teams tackled Mission Three from a variety of angles and developed a range of solutions using onboard sensors.

"Texas Radio Terminator, a team of graduate and undergraduate students from Southern Methodist University in Taos, took an approach of mixing sensors and feedback from the device in ways that should lead to better decisions about how to communicate and coordinate tactics with drone technology in the future," said Rondeau.

"Another university-led team, DeepEdge, used computer vision to recognize and track a face with the UAV. The approach used by this team, comprised of students and professors from University of California, Irvine and University of Southern California, demonstrated the possibilities of using autonomous tracking by making use of the application layer (computer vision) and the physical layer (SDR) for managing the computing and communications resources available. The team from Assured Information Security also took on Mission Three, creating new physical channels for each sensor, which provides a means to better manage spectrum resources."

Bringing a diversity of backgrounds and expertise to the Hackfest, each team took on the Missions with their own styles of creativity. However, after a few days of problem solving, all teams came to the same conclusion-the true challenge didn't reside within the individual technologies but rather in the task of bringing everything together.

"Teams tapped on-site experts and resources, other teams, and the hacker-space community, generating the collaboration we hoped would be catalyzed by the event," said Rondeau.

"What we learned from this experience is that there is still more to be done to progress SDR, but the active involvement of a growing community will help energize efforts to keep things moving forward."

With an eye on eking more value from the technology development that began during the DARPA SDR Hackfest, several teams have posted their innovations to open-source platforms and communities. Additional details about the DARPA SDR Hackfest can be found at https://darpahackfest.com/.

CYBER WARS
US to send cyber soldiers to the battlefield; 3 plead guilty in botnet attack
Washington (AFP) Dec 14, 2017
The US Army will soon send teams of cyber warriors to the battlefield, officials said Wednesday, as the military increasingly looks to take the offensive against enemy computer networks. While the Army's mission is generally to "attack and destroy," the cyber troops have a slightly different goal, said Colonel Robert Ryan, who commands a Hawaii-based combat team. "Not everything is destr ... read more

Related Links
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues


Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly


paypal only
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal


Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

CYBER WARS
NASA Establishes Advisory Group for National Space Council

PARC to Partner with Commercial Space Leader to Accelerate Space R and D

Paolo Nespoli returns to Earth

Two astronauts, cosmonaut return from five-month ISS mission

CYBER WARS
RS-25 Engine Test is Giant Step for 3-D Printing

ArianeGroup signs contract with ESA for future Prometheus engine

Ariane 5 rocket takes off with European GPS satellites

Russian space agency blames satellite loss on programming error

CYBER WARS
Designing future human space exploration on Hawaii's lava fields

Space program should focus on Mars, says editor of New Space

EU exempts fuel for ExoMars mission from Russian sanctions

NASA's oldest Mars rover survives another harsh winter

CYBER WARS
Nation 'leads world' in remote sensing technology

China plans for nuclear-powered interplanetary capacity by 2040

China plans first sea based launch by 2018

China's reusable spacecraft to be launched in 2020

CYBER WARS
Green Light for Continued Operations of ESA Science Missions

New business incubators will help space industry grow

mu Space becomes first Thai startup to acquire satellite license

Regulation and compliance for nontraditional space missions

CYBER WARS
Boeing tapped to sustain Space-Based Space Surveillance system

NASA laser communication payload undergoing integration and testing

Northrop Grumman producing RF threat detection system

Computer systems predict objects' responses to physical forces

CYBER WARS
Fungi made life on Earth possible, researchers claim

Life's building blocks observed in spacelike environment

Two Super-Earths around red dwarf K2-18

U of T researcher finds Earth-like conditions in little-known exoplanet - and discovers a new planet

CYBER WARS
New Horizons Corrects Its Course in the Kuiper Belt

Does New Horizons' Next Target Have a Moon?

Juno probes the depths of Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Wrapping up 2017 one year out from MU69









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.