Reverse Engineering and Control-Aware Security Analysis of the ArduPilot UAV Framework

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technologies are gaining high interest for many domains, which makes UAV security of utmost importance. ArduPilot is among the most widely used open-source autopilot UAV frameworks; yet, many studies demonstrate the vulnerabilities affecting such systems. Vulnerabilities within its communication subsystems (including WiFi, telemetry, or GPS) expose critical entry points, and vulnerabilities in Ardupilot can affect the control procedure. In this paper, we reconstruct the software architecture and the control models implemented by ArduPilot and then examine how these control models could potentially misused to induce malicious behaviors while relying on legitimate inputs.