Team commandeers GPS signals of UAV from outside

According to a statement, the discovery could factor heavily into the implementation of a new federal mandate to allow thousands of civilian drones into US airspace by 2015.

Todd Humphreys, assistant professor at Cockrell School of Engineering, and his students were invited by the US Department of Homeland Security to attempt the demonstration in White Sands, New Mexico, in late June.

Using a small but sophisticated UAV along with hardware and software developed by Humphreys and his students, the research team repeatedly overtook navigational signals going to the GPS-guided vehicle.

Known as ‘spoofing,’ the technique creates false civil GPS signals that trick the vehicle’s GPS receiver into thinking nothing is amiss — even as it steers a new navigational course induced by the outside hacker.

Because spoofing fools GPS receivers’ on both their location and time, some fear that most GPS-reliant devices, infrastructure and markets are vulnerable to attacks.

The recent demonstration by University of Texas at Austin researchers is the first known unequivocal demonstration that commandeering a UAV via GPS spoofing is technically feasible.