Nowadays, the security is a crucial international and societal challenge which faces a growth of the diversity security threats and the development of autonomous systems which increases dramatically the complexity of the threat management. Studies need to be carried out to determine the best measures for protection and the most appropriate reactions to develop appropriate, efficient and consistent solutions against the present and future aviation threats.
Since 2001 the way to envisage aviation security has deeply evolved because of terrorist attacks and the increase of emerging threats and vulnerabilities. Although many projects were focusing on detection and prevention, studies need to be carried out to determine the best measures for protection and the most appropriate reactions and to develop a joint simulation environment to evaluate the efficiency of security concepts or security systems. The performance assessment of security solutions and the definition of appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are today essential needs to build an aviation security policy taking into account the issues of the development of autonomous systems, which increases dramatically the complexity of the threat management.
The main goals are to identify the best solutions in a standardised way regarding their efficiency and trust for the protection and to improve the resilience of the whole aviation system and the passenger survivability. Furthermore the aviation community has to anticipate unknown future threats instead of reacting continuously in hindsight with new strict regulations.
The Future Sky Theme 5 on Security for Aviation will investigate the following key elements:
- The development of a joint simulation environment and the associated tools and platforms to assess the performance of security concepts and solutions against present and future threats.
- A good balance between the developments of the different strategic facilities: numerical tools, experimental tools and system tests.
- Although further investigation on threat detection, identification and prevention are needed, studies need to be carried out to determine the best measures for protection and the most appropriate reactions (prepare, respond, recover).
- A long-term vision with far goals and disruptive approaches has to be encouraged by:
- Specific Calls for cross-fertilization with other domains.
- A Civilian Aviation Security Research Network. This aviation security community will learn about the efficiency of security solutions, will adapt the security measures to the threat evolutions, and will anticipate unknown future threats instead of reacting continuously in hindsight with new strict regulations.
In a practical way, EREA members suggest to launch the development of a joint simulation environment based on a shared platform and/or a network of connected platforms. The first steps for this environment building should be focused on the performance assessment in a standardised way and KPI definition obtained with the analysis of a scenario involving several drones in the attack team against an airport in which are taken into account the air activity and a set of counter measures (including drones) dedicated to its protection.