FALCON: Framework for Adversarial Learning and Capability Observation in Networked UAS
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Project Summary
AI-enabled drones are becoming easier for non-state actors to acquire and operate, and DHS and its partners currently lack systematic methods for assessing how such actors overcome barriers of cost, access, and technical skill to build usable attack capability. The FALCON project addresses this gap by treating capability as a process that develops over time rather than as a fixed attribute, and by identifying the observable signals that mark progress along that process.
Purpose/Objectives
FALCON gives DHS analysts an empirically grounded way to recognize when non-state actors are approaching the capability to conduct AI-enabled drone surveillance or disruption against critical infrastructure, supporting counter-UAS planning and technology monitoring before those capabilities become operational.
Method
The work proceeds in three phases:
The first develops an analytical framework, called Cyber-PhysiKC, that links vulnerabilities in drone systems to the operational effects they could produce, filtered through organizational knowledge, resource limits, and strategic incentives. The second runs large-scale adversarial exercises in which small teams working under realistic constraints attempt surveillance or disruption against simulated critical infrastructure targets. The third combines statistical modeling with qualitative process tracing to identify capability thresholds and the early indicators that precede them.
Research Team
Ryan Shandler, Ph.D.
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Assistant professor of political science, Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity & Privacy
- Expertise: human dimension of cybersecurity
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Associate professor, School of Cybersecurity & Privacy
- Expertise: cyber-physical and embedded systems security
Jon Lindsay, Ph.D.
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Associate professor, School of Cybersecurity & Privacy
- Expertise: international security, cyber conflict, strategic studies