Cybersecurity Requirements for Unmanned Vehicle Integration
A case study of the Royal Netherlands Navy
E.L.M. Alblas (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
R.S. van Wegberg – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
A.M.G. Zuiderwijk-van Eijk – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
The Royal Netherlands Navy is integrating unmanned vehicles into its ships, bringing each vehicle's data into the combat management system so the crew can act on what it senses. The existing Defence cybersecurity norms, however, assume a system that stays on board, connects over the internal network, and is operated by the crew. An unmanned vehicle meets none of these assumptions, and whether the norms cover its integration has not been systematically assessed. This thesis identifies the cybersecurity requirements that the existing norms must address to enable secure integration. It is a qualitative single case study of the Royal Netherlands Navy, structured around three sub-questions that examine the governing norms, the stakeholders involved, and the cybersecurity concerns the integration raises. A gap analysis confronts these three, and a stakeholder workshop validates the result. The analysis identifies three structural gaps: in the off-ship segment, the coupling into the combat management system, and the form of the norm-set, and derives seven requirements that address them. Together, they define what the norms must cover for unmanned vehicles to be integrated rather than only deployed.