Secure UAV (Drone) and the Great Promise of AI

Abstract

UAVs have found their applications in numerous applications from recreational activities to business in addition to military and strategic fields. However, research on UAVs is not going on as quickly as the technology. Especially, when it comes to the security of these devices, the academia is lagging behind the industry. This gap motivates our work in this article as a stepping stone for future research in this area. A comprehensive survey on the security of UAVs and UAV-based systems can help the research community keep pace with, or even lead the industry. Although there are several reviews on UAVs or related areas, there is no recent survey broadly covering various aspects of security. Moreover, none of the existing surveys highlights current and future trends with a focus on the role of an omnipresent technology such as AI. This article endeavors to overcome these shortcomings. We conduct a comprehensive review on security challenges of UAVs as well as the related security controls. Then we develop a future roadmap for research in this area with a focus on the role of AI. The future roadmap is established based on the identified current trends, under-researched topics, and a future look-ahead.