Stealthy Attacks on Pheromone Swarming Methods

Janiece Kelly, Texas State University Seth Richter, LeTourneau University Dr. Mina Guirguis, Texas State University

Pheromone Swarming Control Advantages

Robust Adaptive Less manpower

Applications Border Control Area Coverage Search and Rescue

Research Question: How secure are pheromone swarming methods?

Swarming Implementation Movement

Probability, pi

Server Scheme

p1

p3

p2

p4

iRobot Create Robots

SERVER

Stealthy Attacks Complete (C)

Probability Threshold (PT)

Full Proximity (FP)

Server (T)Δ(B,T) Δ(C,T)

B C

A

Server (T)Δ(B,T) Δ(C,T)

B C

AΔ(B,T) + Δ(C,T) < PT Δ(B,T) + Δ(C,T) ≥ PT

Assessment Metrics Damage

Collisions Map differences Steps failed to complete due to a collision

Cost Number of signals blocked

Potency = Damage / Cost

Configurations

10R0T

10R1T

10R5T

10R10

T

10R20

T0

0.010.020.030.040.050.06

Collision Potency for Various 10 Robot Configurations

CFP1FP3FP5PT.9PT.6PT.1

Configuration

Pote

ncy

(Col

lisio

ns C

ause

d pe

r Si

gnal

Jam

med

)

AOI Coverage

N C FP1 FP3 FP5FP10

PT.9

PT.6

PT.1

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

Standard Devia-tion in AOI Cov-erage: 10R5T

Attack PolicySt

anda

rd D

evia

tion

(Co

vera

ge)

(1,3)

(3,3)

(6,12)

(7,11) (8,

9)(9,

11)(10

,4)(12

,3)(13

,9)(14

,4)0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

Coverage Comparison: All AOIs

NCFP1FP5PT.1PT.6PT.9

Grid Cell

Num

ber

of V

isit

s

AcknowledgmentThis research is funded by NSF REU award #1156712 that is co-funded by the DoD and by NSF award #1149397.

System is vulnerable to stealthy attacks

Stealthy attack potency can be 14 times that of DoS

Parameters that affect attack potency: Radius of attack Probability threshold Number of agents/targets

present

Conclusions