Skyshield AI: Zero-Trust Drone Fleet Telemetry & Threat Detection System

Inspiration

Modern drones are increasingly used in logistics, surveillance, emergency response, and defense operations. However, they remain vulnerable to cyber threats such as GPS spoofing, replay attacks, signal jamming, and unauthorized command execution. We wanted to build a system that applies Zero-Trust principles to drone operations, ensuring that no telemetry data or command is trusted without verification.

What It Does

AeroTrust continuously verifies drone telemetry and operator commands in real time. The platform detects GPS spoofing, nonce replay attacks, and abnormal flight behavior using physics-based validation and cryptographic verification. It provides a live fleet dashboard, threat alerts, attack simulation capabilities, and dual-signature authorization for critical drone commands.

How We Built It

The frontend was developed using React, TypeScript, TailwindCSS, and Leaflet for geospatial visualization. The backend uses Node.js, Express, WebSockets, and PostgreSQL for real-time telemetry processing and data storage. A kinematic validation engine analyzes movement patterns using Haversine distance calculations and acceleration constraints, while nonce sequencing detects replay attacks.

Challenges We Faced

One of the biggest challenges was designing reliable anomaly detection algorithms that minimize false positives while identifying genuine threats. We also faced difficulties in synchronizing real-time telemetry streams, maintaining persistent simulation states, and implementing secure multi-operator authorization workflows.

What We Learned

Through AeroTrust, we gained practical experience in Zero-Trust architecture, real-time systems, cybersecurity threat detection, geospatial analytics, telemetry validation, and secure distributed system design.

Future Scope

• Edge AI-based threat detection on UAV hardware
• Mesh-network communication during signal jamming
• Blockchain-backed immutable audit logs
• Advanced machine learning models for anomaly prediction

Impact

AeroTrust enhances the security and reliability of autonomous drone operations by continuously verifying telemetry and commands, helping organizations protect UAV fleets from modern cyber threats.

Built With

• and
• drizzle-orm
• express.js
• leaflet.js
• node.js
• postgresql
• react
• reactquery
• tailwind-css
• tanstack
• typescript
• vite
• websockets
• zod