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Contingency Clarification Protocols for Reliable

Counter-Drone Operation
Abdulhadi Shoufan and Ernesto Damiani

Abstract—Counter-drone technology plays a vital role in pro- detecting and classifying drones, different technologies such as
tecting airspace against unwanted and malicious drones. Counter- radar, optical systems, and acoustic sensors are used followed
drone systems increasingly rely on unmanned traffic management by signal processing systems and machine learning [12], [50].
services, such as remote identification and flight authorization
enforcement, for the detection and mitigation of unauthorized Similarly, a wide range of interdiction solutions are available
activities on the part of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). These such as jamming, catching, or shooting [35], [43].
services support automated drone identification and verification Unmanned traffic management (UTM) services such as
of the drone activity’s compliance before taking any enforce- Drone Remote Identification (DRI) can make counter-drone
ment action. Available drone identification standards like ASTM
operations more effective [39]. When connected to a UTM,
F3411-22 for Drone Remote Identification (DRI) specify key re-
quirements for entities involved in UAV operations. However, DRI the counter-drone system can identify a drone and verify its
systems can fail for many technical and non-technical reasons flight authorization in the 4D space of interest as shown in
related to the drone itself, its operator, the identification system, Fig 2. Instead of classifying all sighted drones as unwanted,
other involved service suppliers, or the communication between the counter-drone system can now differentiate between legal
these actors. On the other hand, experience has shown that even
and illegal UAV operations. This allows for controlled drone
licensed drone operators can violate permitted flight parameters
mistakenly or for unavoidable reasons. In such contingency use in or close to sensitive areas.
situations, the counter-drone system should perform additional Some preliminary work has been done on standards for DRI
checks and interact with relevant agents before classifying the including the European EN 4709-002:2020 [14] and the US
drone as illegal and taking action against it. This paper presents ASTM F3411-22 [15]. The latter provides a partial list of
a set of protocols to formalize the interaction between the
counter-drone system and relevant agents to clarify possible the entities involved in drone operation, such as the UAVs,
failures and violations. The goal is to complement current DRI their operators, and the observers, which include anti-drone
systems mitigating the effect of erroneous drone identification and enforcement systems. Furthermore, DRI proposals encourage
supporting reliable decision-making. The simulation of worst-case the establishment of international UAV registries enabling
scenarios shows that executing the clarification protocols takes observers to use remote identification messages broadcasted
just a few seconds, and this delay is only notable in situations
where immediate action is required to neutralize illegal drones. by UAVs to access trustworthy information about the drone
and their operators. The proposed standards, however, do not
Index Terms—UAV, Counter-UAS, UTM, Remote Identifica-
cover contingency situations.
tion, Clarification Protocols.
Contingency planning and management is an essential
I. I NTRODUCTION objective of drone operations [22]. Altun et al. classified
contingency hazards in unmanned aircraft systems into five
The market of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), popularly
categories: technical failures, human-related failures, data-
known as drones, is rapidly growing with diverse applications
related issues, infrastructure-based failures, and environmental
in construction, agriculture, insurance, the oil and gas industry,
events [11]. Technical failures primarily affect drone operation
film-making, parcel delivery, journalism, law enforcement, and
and cause malfunctions such as loss-of-link, GPS failure,
civil defense [32]. Despite this, the management of UAVs
navigation degradation, camera failures, and engine and power
operation in urban areas is still in the exploratory stage [59].
failures. Human-related failures essentially stem from the per-
We can neither get our online orders delivered by drones nor
formance of pilots due to distractions for the pilot in command,
ride a taxi drone, although today’s UAVs are technically ready
medical issues, perception, and decision errors. Data-related
for such applications [25]. Indeed, flying a drone is associated
problems can arise from cyberattacks or the provision of
with security, privacy, and safety threats that challenge the
inaccurate or delayed geofence data, weather, or terrain data.
penetration of UAVs in the urban airspace [10], [33]. Safety
Infrastructure-based failures often affect vertiports and lead to
is, without doubt, a critical aspect of drone operation. World-
availability issues, surface contamination, or debris that may
wide reports on drone incidents and intrusions highlight the
interfere with take-off or landing. Environmental events, such
criticality of this issue [26], [27].
as adverse weather conditions, volcano eruptions, air pollution,
Counter-drone technology (also referred to as counter-
unmanned aerial systems (CUAS)) plays a vital role in pro-
tecting the airspace against unwanted and malicious drones.
Fig. 1 shows the two main functions of a typical counter-
drone system: detection & classification and interdiction. For
Center of Cyber-Physical Systems, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
(emails: Abdulhadi.shoufan, Ernesto.damiani @ku.ac.ae) Fig. 1. Conventional counter-drone system

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drone systems to solve ambiguity issues related to drone

identification and authorization. Our solution leverages the
information provided by UTM services and enables counter-
drone systems to interact with relevant entities to remove am-
Fig. 2. UTM-enhanced counter-drone system with proposed contingency biguities about detected drones. We claim that disambiguation
clarification protocols
facilitates the accurate classification of drones and supports
informed and accountable action against illegal ones. While
and bird strikes, can cause contingency situations [11]. indispensable for airspace and public safety, counter-drone
Several authors addressed contingency planning and man- systems are sensitive and controversial [20]. Improving their
agement. For example, Pang et al. proposed an approach to performance is crucial for its acceptance and wide deployment.
estimate the UAV trajectory by utilizing the extended Kalman The clarification protocols proposed in this paper present an
filter when the drone loses the GPS signal [38]. Various important step toward this goal.
machine vision-based methods for self-localization and au- The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section II
tonomous landing in emergency cases were presented [40], describes the related work. Section III specifies the require-
[54]. Also, several authors addressed lost-link situations, e.g., ments for the clarification protocols. Section IV describes the
when the drone loses its internet connection, and proposed so- protocols in detail. Section V describes the implementation
lutions that allow the drone to complete the mission [4], [61]. and evaluation of the proposed protocols.
In addition to such reactive solutions to specific contingency II. R ELATED W ORK
issues, several authors proposed architectures and frameworks
A. UTM Systems
to automate contingency management and integrate it into
unmanned traffic management systems, e.g., [16], [21], [52]. The concept of unmanned traffic management (UTM) refers
This previous research has focused solely on the operational to an ecosystem for controlling the operation of unmanned
aspect of contingency management and failed to consider the aerial systems [30], [59]. Data exchange is at the core of UTM
influence of contingencies on the decision-making process where authorized unmanned service suppliers (USS) provide
of counter-drone systems. Indeed, various technical, human- cloud-based services to different stakeholders. Examples of
related, infrastructural, and data-related failures, as well as these services include UAV control [60], efficient and fair
environmental events can cause a drone to appear unlawful unmanned traffic control [24], flight planning and scheduling
to a CUAS, leading to an incorrect neutralization decision. [8], [51], geofencing [48], path optimization and collision
For example: avoidance [23], weather and contingency management [36],
[42], orchestrating of UAV services [18], and supporting the
1) UAVs can fail to broadcast their remote identification internet-of-drones (IoD) [9].
messages permanently or temporarily. Civil aviation authorities are making use of UTMs to
2) The remote identification receiver of the CUAS system introduce and support regulations. Two well-known exam-
can fail to receive or decode drone self-identification. ples include remote identification and automatic authoriza-
3) UTM service providers can fail to update relevant reg- tion [19]. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency
istries or to do this on time. (EASA) has published the Commission Delegated Regulation
4) Communication with UTM services can fail for technical (EU) 2020/1058 that mandates the equipment of drones with
reasons. a remote identification system [3]. Similarly, the FAA in the
5) UAV operators can exceed the permitted flight time by USA published a final rule for remote identification in January
mistake or for an urgent reason. 2021 [2]. According to this rule, the remote identification
6) UAV operators can deviate from the approved mission message should contain information about the drone’s identity,
trajectory by mistake or for admissible force majeure location, altitude, velocity, the control station’s location and
reasons, e.g. direct danger to humans. elevation, a time mark, and emergency status. A database with
These examples suggest that counter-drone systems may remote ID information should provide three levels of access.
interpret contingency situations as violations although this is Level 1 includes public information such as the UAS unique
not necessarily the case. For reliable enforcement decisions, identifier. Level 2 provides information to designated public
counter-drone systems should be able to disambiguate these safety and airspace management officials, e.g., information
cases and clarify them, as illustrated in Fig. 2. The clarification about the drone owner. Level 3 contains information relevant
of contingency situations is a complex task that requires to the aviation authority and certain federal, state, and local
checks beyond the scope or control of counter-drone systems. agencies, e.g., tracking data. On the other hand, the FAA has
For instance, if a counter-drone system detects a UAV that implemented a system referred to as Low Altitude Authoriza-
does not broadcast its identification messages, the system has tion and Notification Capability (LAANC) [29]. This system
no means to verify whether this issue is due to non-compliance automates the application and approval process for airspace
with regulations or just because of a technical failure. Indeed, authorizations. Its operation goes as follows: the drone pilot
clarifying the reason for the missing identification is essen- submits a request through a LAANC USS. The request is
tial for performing a correct classification of the drone and checked against multiple airspace data sources by the FAA.
deciding whether action should be taken against. If approved, the pilot receives the authorization in near real-
This paper presents a set of protocols that can help counter- time.

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UTM systems are still in their infancy. Some authors have drones, usually by using a net. The net is launched either
highlighted key challenges and issues in the design of these manually by a skilled operator on the ground or autonomously
systems. Wolter et al. pointed out multiple obstacles in the by another flying drone [13]. Finally, a variety of aerial take-
current experimental setups which relate to standardization, down technologies was presented. These include hunting by
information quality, and the transition from human-centric eagles [37] and shooting by machine guns or laser [43].
design to automation [57]. Other authors addressed the security
of UTM systems and presented their vulnerabilities to various
C. Coordination between UTM and Counter-Drone Systems
cyber and physical attacks [7], [9], [47], . The lack of a
consistent legal framework for UTM system operations was Despite the close relation between UTM services and
highlighted in [44]. The authors described the fundamentals counter-drone systems, interoperability between these systems
of such a legal framework which should provide the needed remained unaddressed in the literature. Recently, Park et.
certainty for all stakeholders. al [39] presented a comprehensive review of counter-drone
systems and highlighted the necessity of integrating DRIs and
B. Counter-Drone Systems counter-drone systems. Sandor has highlighted the need to
The counter-drone industry has boomed in recent years. A define the problems, the scope, and the operational environ-
report published by the ”Center for the Study of the Drone” ment of UTMs [46]. The author defined and classified many
at Bard College shows that there are 537 counter-unmanned functions related to UTM and interestingly listed surveillance
aerial systems (CUAS) on the market [34]. Researchers among key UTM services, mentioning a panoply of tech-
showed wide interest in this field, especially regarding the nologies for the detection of cooperative and non-cooperative
detection and classification of small UAVs. vehicles. However, the author did not mention interdiction, a
Counter-drone systems can use a variety of technolo- critical function of a counter-drone system. Apart from this,
gies for drone detection and classification [56]: radar [28], we are not aware of any literature that has addressed counter-
acoustic detectors [12], computer vision [31], and radio fre- drone operations in a UTM context.
quency [5]. Each technology has its advantages and disadvan-
tages. For example, low-cost frequency-modulated continuous III. R EQUIREMENT S PECIFICATION
wave (FMCW) radars are highly resistant to fog, cloud, and
In this section, we first describe the functional requirements
dust, and they do not require line-of-sight. However, their
for the clarification protocols highlighting the problems to be
effectiveness in detecting drones is limited due to the small
resolved and the clarification outcomes. Based on the func-
radar cross-sections of drones. Acoustic detectors, such as
tional requirements, the essential technical requirements for
microphone arrays, are cost-effective and do not require line-
executing the protocols are identified. Finally, the performance
of-sight. However, they are sensitive to ambient noise and
requirements for the protocols are specified.
wind conditions, and they require a comprehensive database
of acoustic signatures for different types of drones. Com-
puter vision-based detection can utilize low-cost cameras like A. Functional requirements
CCTVs and leverage deep learning techniques for classi- The clarification protocols work based on the following
fication. However, computer vision detectors require line- assumptions:
of-sight, and their performance can be affected by adverse
1) All drones must be registered and operated by certified
weather conditions such as dust, fog, cloud, and daytime
pilots.
lighting unless thermal or laser-based cameras are employed.
2) Any drone in flight must broadcast remote identification
On the other hand, radio frequency-based detectors employ
as per regulations.
low-cost sensors and do not require line-of-sight, offering
3) Any drone flying in the operation zone of a CUAS is
long-range capabilities. However, they are not effective for
required to have authorization. The authorization data
drones operating in autonomous mode since these drones
should contain information about the drone ID and the
are typically not controlled using radio frequency signals. In
mission’s date, time, and path.
critical areas, a combination of multiple technologies, known
4) Remote identification and authorization data must be
as multi-modal technologies, can be utilized to complement
accessible through registries.
each other’s strengths and weaknesses [45].
Parallel to the advances in detection and classification The contingency clarification protocols address the follow-
technologies, researchers investigated technical solutions for ing cases:
drone interdiction. Wyder et al. classify these technologies 1) The CUAS receives no remote identification.
according to their impact on the target drone, coming up with 2) The CUAS receives an unknown remote identification.
three main categories: signal interception, propeller restriction, 3) The CUAS receives an expired remote identification.
and aerial take-down [58]. Due to its undisruptive nature, 4) The CUAS finds no flight authorization data for the
signal interception has received substantial attention for UAV drone.
interdiction in urban areas. Depending on the operation mode 5) The CUAS observes a violation of the authorized flight
of the drone, Roth et al. identified two methods of signal time.
interception-based interdiction: drone hacking and GPS spoof- 6) The CUAS observes deviation from the authorized flight
ing [43]. Propeller restriction refers to capturing uncooperative path or zone.

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Fig. 3 illustrates the CUAS connected to the authority and

the flight information management system (FIMS). The FIMS
includes an identity database (ID-DB) and an authorization
database (AUTH-DB). To execute the clarification protocols
the CUAS system should be granted access to ID-DB at level
2 or 3, depending on the authority of these systems, see Section
II-A. We further assume that the ID-DB database is available
and protected against security attacks so that the CUAS can
use it to verify the authenticity of a received remote ID.
Furthermore, we suppose that mission authorizations are
logged in the AUTH-DB. Database and include information
about the drone ID and the mission date, time, path, or zone.
The counter-drone system should have access to the AUTH-
DB to verify the authorization of a detected drone. The AUTH-
Fig. 3. CUAS system integrated into a UTM system DB database must be protected against security attacks.
The effective range of the proposed detection and identi-
fication system is primarily determined by the remote iden-
The execution of the clarification protocol should lead to tification technology employed onboard the drone. Present
one of three alternative decisions: regulations in many countries mandate the use of standard
1) Tolerate the drone violation or non-compliance. WiFi or Bluetooth technology for broadcasting the remote ID,
2) Interdict/disable the drone immediately. resulting in a limited identification range of a few hundred
3) Interdict/disable the drone after a timeout. meters. However, the ASTM standard introduces network-
The type of enforcement action (immediate or after a based remote identification, eliminating this limitation in areas
timeout) depends on the risk associated with violation or non- with adequate mobile network coverage. Regarding detection
compliance. In particular, in the case of low risk, the operator and classification capabilities, the range depends on the sophis-
can be granted a grace period to stop the operation and land tication of the technology utilized. Advanced radar systems,
the drone safely. for instance, can detect small drones at distances of up to 10
Furthermore, to support accountability in counter-drone op- kilometers [1].
erations the system should meet two additional requirements:
1) Any enforcement decision should be taken by a central C. Performance requirements
authority, e.g., civil aviation authority.
The overall architecture shown in Fig. 3 allows the CUAS to
2) The decision should be legally disputable through a
access the UTM databases and interact with relevant agents to
court.
clarify contingency cases. Executing the clarification protocols
is associated with computation and communication overhead
B. Technical requirements that can delay the CUAS’s response to malicious drones.
To meet the functional requirements specified above, the Therefore, we define the minimum delay as a principal non-
following technical provisions are needed: functional requirement for the proposed clarification protocols.
1) In addition to detection, tracking, and interdiction tech-
nologies, the CUAS should include technology for re- IV. P ROTOCOL D ESCRIPTION
ceiving and analyzing UAVs’ remote identification mes- In this section, we describe the clarification protocols in
sages. detail. We first outline the contingency case that initiates the
2) The CUAS should have access to a DRI registry that respective protocol. Then, we explain its functionality using
maintains drone identification information. a table to summarize the protocol outcomes and sequence
3) The identification database should be kept up-to-date by diagrams that illustrate the messaging, as far as needed. The
the authority or any authorized agent. Legacy/expired messages are highlighted in CAPITAL LETTERS in the text.
IDs shall be marked as such, but not removed from the
database.
4) The CUAS should have access to a database that A. Protocol 1-Clarify missing remote identification
maintains information about authorized missions in the The objective of this protocol is to clarify the situation
CUAS’s area of interest. when the CUAS detects a drone but does receive a remote
5) The authorization database should be kept up-to-date by identification from it. In this case, the CUAS queries the
the authority or any authorized agent. authorization database (AUTH-DB) to verify if there is an
6) The CUAS needs a communication link with the author- authorization for any mission in the current time and zone.
ity. If this is the case, the CUAS extracts the identity of the
7) During the flight, drone operators need to be connected operator of the authorized mission. We call this a potential
to the internet and respond to authority inquiries imme- operator of the sighted drone. The goal of the Protocol 1 is
diately. to verify whether this potential operator is the actual operator.

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TABLE I contrast, if the risk is high (or in case a zero-risk policy is

O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 1 (C LARIFY M ISSING ID T RANSMISSION ) preferred), the authority sends a STOP MISSION message
Operator Risk Authority Response Authority Response
to the operator and an INTERDICT AFTER TIME-OUT
Response Assessment to Operator to CUAS message to the CUAS. Receiving this message, the CUAS
CASE 1
No
response
No NA
Authorize immediate
interdiction
takes action against the drone after the time-out specified in
I am Authorize immediate this message.
CASE 2 No NA
not flying interdiction
In CASE 5, the operator confirms that he has restored
I am already Order mission Order mission tolerance or
CASE 3
transmitting my ID
Yes
completion or stop authorize timed interdiction the ID transmission by sending the message I RESTORED
CASE 4
I am not able
Yes
Order mission Order mission tolerance or ID TRANSMISSION to the authority, see Fig. 6. The latter
to restore ID completion or stop authorize timed interdiction
I restored ID Verify ID
asks the CUAS for confirmation by sending a CONFIRM
CASE 5 No NA
transmission restoration ID RESTORATION! message. The CUAS verifies if the
CASE 6
Unconfirmed
Yes
Order mission Order mission tolerance or remote identification signal is available. If yes, it sends an ID
ID restoration completion or stop authorize timed interdiction
RESTORATION CONFIRMED, otherwise, an ID RESTORA-
TION NOT CONFIRMED message to the authority. Upon
unconfirmed ID restoration (CASE 6), the authority acts
according to the risk level as illustrated in Fig. 6.

B. Protocol 2-Clarify unknown identity

This protocol aims to handle the situation when the CUAS
receives a remote ID but does not find any related entry in ID-
DB or AUTH-DB. This issue can be caused by a technical,
data-related, or communication failure related to the databases.
Alternatively, the detected drone could be unregistered and
Fig. 4. Protocol 1 (CASE 1 and CASE 2). The CUAS does not receive an flying illegally without registration. The CAUS initiates this
ID from the detected drone. The drone operator either does not respond or protocol by sending the authority an UNKNOWN ID message
confirms that he/she is not flying. with the unrecognized identity. The latter performs necessary
checks to verify if the provided ID exists and the source of
failure causing the database misses. Depending on the result
The CUAS initiates this protocol by sending a message called
of these checks, we identify three cases as summarized in
NO ID BUT POTENTIAL OPERATOR to the authority.
Table II.
This message includes the ID of the potential operator. The
CASE 1 occurs when the authority does not detect any
authority sends a CHECK/RESTORE ID TRANSMISSION
failure related to the databases and concludes that the sighted
message to the potential operator and receives one of four
drone is not registered. As a response, it sends an INTERDICT
responses or no response as outlined in Table I (CASE 1 to
IMMEDIATELY message to the CAUS as depicted in Fig.
CASE 5). Next, we describe how to treat each of these cases
7. If a forensic investigation is desired, the authority may
as well as CASE 6 which occurs when the CUAS does not
request the CUAS to use non-destroying enforcement for the
confirm ID restoration in response to CASE 5.
interdiction.
In the case of no response (CASE 1) or when the operator In CASE 2, the authority detects a failure in the ID-
confirms that he or she is not flying (CASE 2), the authority DB, which prevents the CUAS from retrieving the ID from
may have no possibility for further checks. Hence, it sends
an INTERDICT IMMEDIATELY message to the CUAS. The
latter performs the interdiction and reports this to the authority.
The authority may investigate the case, issue a fine, or file a
lawsuit case if needed, see Fig. 4.
CASE 3 occurs when the operator denies that the drone
is not broadcasting remote identification. In this case, the
operator replies to the authority by sending the message I AM
ALREADY TRANSMITTING ID. CASE 4 occurs when the
operator confirms that the drone is not broadcasting remote
identification, and this cannot be restored at the moment,
e.g., due to a technical issue. For this, the operator sends
the message UNABLE TO RESTORE ID, see Fig. 5. In both
cases, the authority may conduct a fast risk assessment. Risk
severity evaluation may take into account available information
on the importance of the drone mission and the criticality
of the respective fly zone. If the estimated risk is low, the
authority sends a TOLERATE ID FAILURE message to CUAS Fig. 5. Protocol 1 (CASE 3 and CASE 4). The drone operator claims that he
and a COMPLETE MISSION message to the operator. In or she is already broadcasting remote ID or unable to restore transmission.

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Fig. 7. Protocol 2 (All cases). Clarify unknown ID.

Fig. 6. Protocol 1 (CASE 5 and CASE 6). The drone operator claims that
ID transmission is restored.

this database. However, it finds no issue in the AUTH-DB.

It concludes that the drone is registered but not authorized
to fly. In this case, the authority sends a STOP MISSION
message to the operator and an INTERDICT AFTER TIME-
OUT message to the CUAS.
In CASE 3, the authority identifies issues in both databases.
In this case, it sends a TOLERATE message to the CUAS
indicating that the received ID is original and should be
provisionally accepted until the database issues are fixed.

C. Protocol 3-Clarify missing ID in ID-DB

Fig. 8. Protocol 4 (Clarify Unauthorized & Expired ID)
This protocol clarifies the situation when the CUAS receives
a remote ID but does not find the corresponding entry in
the ID-DB. At the same time, the AUTH-DB shows that the D. Protocol 4-Clarify expired ID & unauthorized mission
drone with the received ID is authorized to operate in the
respective time and zone. In this case, the CAUS sends the This protocol clarifies the situation when the CUAS receives
authority an ID-BD MISS message that contains the received a remote identification but the ID-DB shows that the drone
remote ID. The latter checks if the ID-DB has any technical registration is expired. In addition, the AUTH-DB contains
issues. If yes, the authority sends the CUAS a TOLERATE no mission authorization for the sighted drone. In this case,
ID FAILURE message and works on resolving the issue, see the CAUS sends the authority the message EXPIRED ID &
CASE 1 in Table III. CASE 2 occurs when the problem can UNAUTHORIZED as shown in Fig. 8. The authority checks
be resolved quickly by the authority. In this case, the latter if there are any issues related to the databases. If no, it sends a
requests the CUAS to confirm the ID restoration. Note that STOP MISSION message to the operator and an INTERDICT
the drone operator is not involved in this protocol. AFTER TIME-OUT message to the CUAS. In contrast, if the
authority identifies a technical issue in the databases, it sends
a TOLERATE AUTH FAILURE message to the CUAS and
TABLE II works on fixing the problem.
O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 2 (C LARIFY U NKNOWN ID I SSUE )

Authority Response Authority Response

Description
to Operator to CUAS TABLE III
No technical issues, Authorize immediate O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 3 (C LARIFY M ISSING ID IN ID-DB)
CASE 1 NA
unregistered ID interdiction
Description Authority response to CUAS
Correct ID, Order mission Authorize timed
CASE 2 Unresolved technical
issue with the ID-BD stop interdiction CASE 1 Tolerate ID failure
issue in ID-DB
Correct ID, Order mission Resolved technical
CASE 3 NA CASE 2 Confirm ID restoration
issues with both databases tolerance issue in ID-DB

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E. Protocol 5-Clarify authorized mission despite expired ID

This protocol clarifies the situation when the CUAS receives
a remote identification but the ID-DB shows that the drone
registration has expired. However, the AUTH-DB contains
a mission authorization for the drone. This situation can be
caused by technical issues related to the ID-DB or human er-
rors leading to providing a performance authorization without
proper checking of the ID validity.
To handle this situation, the CAUS sends the authority an
EXPIRED ID BUT AUTHORIZED MISSION message. The
latter sends a TOLERATE EXPIRED ID message to the CUAS
and works on fixing the problem. Alternatively, the authority
updates the ID-DB immediately and requests the CUAS to
confirm. Table IV summarizes the outcomes of this protocol.

F. Protocol 6-Clarify flying without authorization

Fig. 9. Protocol 6 (Clarify flying without authorization)
This protocol clarifies the situation when the received re-
mote ID is in ID-DB and valid, but there is no corresponding
authorization in the AUTH-DB. In this case, the CUAS sends AREA. Table VI summarizes five possible cases for clarifying
an AUTH-DB MISS message to the authority as shown in this situation.
Fig. 9. The latter checks if the missing authorization is due In CASE 1, the operator does not respond to the request.
to a technical or data-related issue (CASE 1), see Table V. If In this case, the authority requests the operator to stop the
this is the case, the authority updates the database and sends mission and authorizes the CUAS to neutralize the drone after
the message AUTH-DB MISS RESOLVED to the CUAS. a time-out. The operator can deny the flight zone violation
Otherwise, it assumes that the operator is flying without (CASE 2) or claim that he cannot return the drone to the
permission and performs a fast risk assessment. Depending authorized zone for any reason (CASE 3). In these cases, the
on the outcome of this assessment, the authority can request authority decides based on the risk level as detailed in Fig. 11.
the operator to stop the mission and send the CUAS an In CASE 4, the operator confirms that he has returned to the
INTERDICT AFTER TIME-OUT message (CASE 2). If the authorized area. The authority asks the CUAS to validate this.
risk level is low, the authority can request the CUAS to tolerate If the CUAS disconfirms, the authority requests the operator
the mission (CASE 3). to stop the mission and the CUAS to interdict the drone after
a time-out. This same decision can be taken when the operator
G. Protocol 7-Clarify flight zone violation violates the authorized area fly zone repeatedly (CASE 5).

This protocol clarifies the situation when the drone flies

beyond the authorized zone. The CUAS sends an AREA VI- H. Protocol 8-Clarify flight time violation
OLATION message to the authority, as shown in Fig. 10. The This protocol is similar to Protocol 7. It clarifies the
latter requests the operator to RETURN TO AUTHORIZED situation when the drone is found to exceed the authorized
flight time. The CUAS sends a TIME VIOLATION message
to the authority. The latter requests the operator to stop the
TABLE IV mission. When the operator does not respond to this request,
O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 5 (C LARIFY AUTHORIZED B UT E XPIRED ID)
the authority requests the CUAS to neutralize the drone after
Description
Authority response a time-out. When the operator denies the time violation or
to CUAS claims that he cannot stop the mission for any reason, the
Unresolved technical
CASE 1
issue in ID-DB
Tolerate expired ID authority decides based on the risk level similar to Protocol 7.
Resolved technical
CASE 2 Confirm valid ID entry
issue in ID-DB
TABLE VI
O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 7 (C LARIFY A REA V IOLATION )
TABLE V
O UTCOMES OF P ROTOCOL 6 (C LARIFY FLYING WITHOUT
Operator Response Risk Authority Response Authority Response
AUTHORIZATION ) /Description Assessment to Operator to CUAS

No Order Authorize timed

CASE 1 No
Risk Authority Response Authority Response response mission stop interdiction
Description
Assessment to Operator to CUAS I am already flying in Order mission Order mission tolerance
CASE 2 Yes
authorized area completion or stop or authorize timed interdiction
Technical issue Technical issue
CASE 1 No NA I cannot return Order mission Order mission tolerance
with AUTH-DB resolved CASE 3 Yes
to authorized area completion or stop or authorize timed interdiction
No technical issue Order mission Authorize timed
CASE 2 Yes I returned Verify return
High risk stop interdiction CASE 4
to authorized area
No NA
to authorized area
No technical issue Order mission Order mission Unconfirmed return Order Authorize timed
CASE 3 Yes CASE 5 No
Low risk completion tolerance to authorized area mission stop interdiction

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Fig. 10. Protocol 7 (Clarify Area Violation, CASE 1). The operator violates
the flight zone and does not respond to the authority.

Fig. 12. Overview of the simulation environment.

When the operator confirms that he stopped the mission. The
authority asks the CUAS to validate. If the CUAS disconfirms,
the authority requests the operator to stop the mission and The system was simulated on a desktop machine with an Intel
the CUAS to interdict the drone after a time-out. This same Core i9-8950HK CPU running at 2.90 GHz and 32 GB RAM.
decision can be taken when the operator violates the authorized The objective of the simulation is to estimate the clari-
area fly zone repeatedly. fication time, i.e., the wall-clock time elapsed between the
detection of a drone and receiving a decision message from
V. S YSTEM S IMULATION AND E VALUATION the authority. For this, we designed multiple scenarios to
model diverse behaviors and mimic different responses to
We first validated the proposed protocols using Matlab. We authority messages paying attention to protocol executions
created state machines to model the interaction between the that correspond to worst-case clarification times. We used
CUAS, the authority, and the operator with the help of the scripts to simulate multiple scenarios for the same drone and
Stateflow toolbox [53]. The simulation allowed us to identify employed the child process module to launch multiple scripts
and debug different types of errors such as unreachable states, and simulate numerous drones.
missing transitions, and deadlocks. Figure 13 summarizes the simulation results showing the
To evaluate the performance of the protocols, we then built average clarification time for different protocols and varying
an event-driven application using Node.js [55], an open-source numbers of drones from 1 to 250 in steps of 50. We explain
WebSocket protocol [41], and SQL databases, as illustrated in this diagram by an example. Assume that the CUAS system
Figure 12. The system allows the creation of full-duplex con- has detected 50 drones that are all broadcasting their remote
nections for message exchange between the server (authority) identification but the CUAS cannot find any of these IDs in the
and the clients (CUAS and UAV operators) and can handle ID-DB. The CUAS would initiate protocol 3 to clarify these
multiple operators, drones, and missions. The async library issues. The simulation results in Figure 13 show that, in this
was used in both the CUAS and authority scripts to handle case, every drone requires an average of 3.3 seconds to be
multiple requests in an asynchronous non-blocking mode [6].

Fig. 11. Protocol 7 (Clarify Area Violation, CASE 2 and CASE 3). The Fig. 13. Clarification time of executing the proposed protocols for different
operator responds to the authority message. numbers of drones.

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• When the decision is to interdict the drone immediately,

then tout = 0.
• When the decision is to tolerate the drone, then tout = ∞.
• When the decision is to interdict the drone after a
timeout, then tout should be around what an operator
typically needs to stop the mission, e.g., by landing the
drone safely. Landing a drone takes place at low speeds,
e.g., 4 m/sec according to [49]. So, if a multirotor drone
flies at an altitude of 100 meters, the landing would take
around 25 seconds.

Interdiction time (tinterdiction ): This time depends on the

used technology. Jamming is one of the fastest solutions
due to its non-kinetic nature. Although the jamming signal
should be directed to reduce side effects, the market is
rich in off-the-shelf solutions with omnidirectional jammers
Fig. 14. Clarification time of proposed protocols for 250 drones. that block communication immediately after being switched
on. The interdiction time of such systems would be negligible.

clarified. The box-and-whisker plot in Figure 14 demonstrates Based on these estimations, Table VII summarizes the
the data distribution more clearly. Taking Protocol 1 and the impact of the clarification time on the CUAS’s response time
case of 250 drones as an example, we can see that the system for the three outcomes of decisions: tolerance, interdiction
can clarify 75% of the cases in less than seven seconds while after a timeout, and immediate interdiction. Accordingly, when
the maximum clarification time is 7.5 seconds only. the authority decides to tolerate the drone, the clarification
We evaluate the clarification time tclarif y based on its time has no impact. When the drone is to be neutralized after
contribution to the total response time tresponse of the counter- a timeout of 25 seconds, the clarification time extends the
drone system as illustrated in Figure 15. Here, td&c , tout , and response time by 9%. In the case of immediate interdiction,
tinterdiction refer to the time needed to detect and classify the the clarification time worsens the response time by 68%. In
drone, the timeout before initiating the interdiction, and the other words, the clarification would delay the interdiction by
interdiction time, respectively. Accordingly, the impact of the approximately 2.5 sec.
clarification time on the response time can be defined by the
following ratio:
VI. D ISCUSSION
tclarif y According to the performance evaluation, the use of clarifi-
R= (1)
td&c + tclarif y + tout + tinterdiction cation protocols can significantly affect the response of the
counter-drone system only when the drone is identified as
In the following, we evaluate R for the case of a single drone illegal and requires immediate neutralization. However, even
where tclarif y ≈ 2.5 seconds in the worst case according to in such cases, the delay in response is only a few seconds.
the simulation. For this, we first provide some estimation for This delay is a compromise for dealing with legal UAVs
td&c , tout , and tinterdiction . that may have technical or non-technical issues. Whether or
not to accept this compromise depends on the criticality of
Detection and classification time (td&c ): Reports on the time the particular zone and the level of experience with drone
needed to detect and classify a drone are scarce. Basak et al. operations in and around that zone. Such experience can
[17] proposed a combined drone detection and classification provide insight into the likelihood of encountering contingency
framework using YOLO Lite. They reported a mean inference issues versus illegal operations, but unfortunately, there is
time of 1.16 seconds for detecting and classifying one drone. currently no data available to inform these decisions. Future
research may shed light on this topic.
Timeout (tout ): The timeout depends on the outcome of the There are some limitations to this study, specifically related
clarification protocol as follows: to the accuracy of determining clarification time. The simu-
lation was run on a single computer without real network-
ing, whereas a real deployment would involve a distributed
system that introduces network and communication delays.
Additionally, the simulation assumed that the authority and
operators would respond without delay, which may not be
practically feasible. Therefore, actual implementation and real-
time measurements in the future could provide more accurate
timing data. Furthermore, the protocols were implemented
Fig. 15. Illustrating the components of the CUAS’s response time at the application layer, but in a real deployment, security

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for on-demand dynamic capacity management service in u-space. IEEE from the IEEE Technical Committee on Homeland Security, the Stephen Yau
Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 58(5):4180–4195, Award from the Service Society, the Outstanding Contributions Award from
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TAES.2022.3159317. and Innovation Award, and a Doctorate Honoris Causa from INSA-Lyon,
[52] Hugo Eduardo Teomitzi and Joerg R Schmidt. Concept and requirements France, for his contribution to big data teaching and research.
for an integrated contingency management framework in uas missions.
In 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference (50100), pages 1–17. IEEE, 2021.

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