Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Securing Interactions between Driver and Vehicle Using Batteries

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The goal of this project is to develop a novel vehicle theft protection called BVI (Battery-based Vehicle Immobilizer). The project’s novelties lie with the use of 12/24V automotive batteries as a physical channel to monitor and control the interactions between drivers and vehicles. BVI is driven by unending vehicle thefts due mainly to the inability of key- or keyfob-based vehicle immobilizers, which usually rely on vulnerable external wireless communications and in-vehicle networks, to prevent thefts. The project’s broader significance and importance are multi-fold. BVI is to make significant socio-economic impacts by securing vehicles, and thus benefitting all parties in the transportation ecosystem: increasing revenue and boosting brand loyalty for car makers; providing owners/drivers with stronger protection of their vehicles and thus reducing their financial loss and mental stress due to vehicle thefts; facilitating personalized insurance coverage to increase social welfare. BVI’s easy deployability facilitates tech-transitioning, and also offers the project participants (graduate and undergraduate students, including those from underrepresented minorities in computing) multi-dimensional training opportunities and competence. BVI consists of three key research components that are physically isolated from these common cyber-attack vectors, with the main tasks to design (i) two authentication systems to verify each legitimate driver using battery voltage/current as the identity carrier, (ii) an adaptive and thermally-robust power control module to reduce/restore the battery’s power capacity to dis/enable vehicle access, and (iii) four important functions to enable BVI as an end-to-end vehicle immobilizer that is compliant with the IEC 60839-10-1 standard, including estimation of vehicle status, detection of weak/faulty vehicle batteries, detection of illegitimate vehicle accesses, and automatic recharging power supplies to relieve drivers from maintenance burden. BVI is designed as a second-factor authentication solution that is complementary to car keys or keyfobs, and can also be extended to replace them, opening a new era of secure and keyless operation of vehicles.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.