On-line Identification of Delay Attacks in Networked Servo Control

The paper discusses attacks on networked control loops by increased delay, and shows how existing round trip jitter may disguise such attacks. The attackers objective need not be de-stabilization, the paper argues that making settling time requirements fail can be sufficient. To defend against such attacks, the paper proposes the use of joint recursive prediction error identification of the round trip delay and the networked closed loop dynamics. The proposed identification algorithm allows general defense, since it is designed for delayed nonlinear dynamics in state space form. Simulations show that the method is able to detect a delay attack on a printed circuit board component mounting servo loop, long before the attack reaches full effect. Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors.