Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
The dependency of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, on off-board data, such as control and position data, makes them highly susceptible to serious safety and security threats, including data interceptions, Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming, and spoofing attacks. This indee...
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MDPI AG
2025-04-01
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| author | Raghad Al-Syouf Omar Y. Aljarrah Raed Bani-Hani Abdallah Alma’aitah |
| author_facet | Raghad Al-Syouf Omar Y. Aljarrah Raed Bani-Hani Abdallah Alma’aitah |
| author_sort | Raghad Al-Syouf |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The dependency of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, on off-board data, such as control and position data, makes them highly susceptible to serious safety and security threats, including data interceptions, Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming, and spoofing attacks. This indeed necessitates the existence of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) in place to detect potential security threats/intrusions promptly. Recently, machine-learning-based IDSs have gained popularity due to their high performance in detecting known as well as novel cyber-attacks. However, the time and computation efficiencies of ML-based IDSs still present a challenge in the UAV domain. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) technique based on feature importance ranking along with a Spearman Correlation Analysis (SCA). This technique is built on ensemble learning approaches, namely, bagging, boosting, stacking, and voting classifiers, to efficiently detect GPS spoofing attacks. Two benchmark datasets are employed: the GPS spoofing dataset and the UAV location GPS spoofing dataset. The results show that our proposed ensemble models achieved a notable balance between efficacy and efficiency, showing that the bagging classifier achieved the highest accuracy rate of 99.50%. At the same time, the Decision Tree (DT) and the bagging classifiers achieved the lowest processing time of 0.003 s and 0.029 s, respectively, using the GPS spoofing dataset. For the UAV location GPS spoofing dataset, the bagging classifier emerged as the top performer, achieving 99.16% accuracy and 0.002 s processing time compared to other well-known ML models. In addition, the experimental results show that our proposed methodology (RFE) outperformed other well-known ML models built on conventional feature selection techniques for detecting GPS spoofing attacks, such as mutual information gain, correlation matrices, and the chi-square test. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-09d091221b4d4ccca5b782d77a415a9c |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj-art-09d091221b4d4ccca5b782d77a415a9c2025-08-20T02:25:12ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202025-04-01258238810.3390/s25082388Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial VehiclesRaghad Al-Syouf0Omar Y. Aljarrah1Raed Bani-Hani2Abdallah Alma’aitah3Department of Network Engineering and Security, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, JordanDepartment of Network Engineering and Security, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, JordanDepartment of Network Engineering and Security, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, JordanDepartment of Network Engineering and Security, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, JordanThe dependency of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, on off-board data, such as control and position data, makes them highly susceptible to serious safety and security threats, including data interceptions, Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming, and spoofing attacks. This indeed necessitates the existence of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) in place to detect potential security threats/intrusions promptly. Recently, machine-learning-based IDSs have gained popularity due to their high performance in detecting known as well as novel cyber-attacks. However, the time and computation efficiencies of ML-based IDSs still present a challenge in the UAV domain. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) technique based on feature importance ranking along with a Spearman Correlation Analysis (SCA). This technique is built on ensemble learning approaches, namely, bagging, boosting, stacking, and voting classifiers, to efficiently detect GPS spoofing attacks. Two benchmark datasets are employed: the GPS spoofing dataset and the UAV location GPS spoofing dataset. The results show that our proposed ensemble models achieved a notable balance between efficacy and efficiency, showing that the bagging classifier achieved the highest accuracy rate of 99.50%. At the same time, the Decision Tree (DT) and the bagging classifiers achieved the lowest processing time of 0.003 s and 0.029 s, respectively, using the GPS spoofing dataset. For the UAV location GPS spoofing dataset, the bagging classifier emerged as the top performer, achieving 99.16% accuracy and 0.002 s processing time compared to other well-known ML models. In addition, the experimental results show that our proposed methodology (RFE) outperformed other well-known ML models built on conventional feature selection techniques for detecting GPS spoofing attacks, such as mutual information gain, correlation matrices, and the chi-square test.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/8/2388cyber-attacksensemble modelsGPS spoofingmachine learning (ML)intrusion detection system (IDS)UAVs |
| spellingShingle | Raghad Al-Syouf Omar Y. Aljarrah Raed Bani-Hani Abdallah Alma’aitah Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Sensors cyber-attacks ensemble models GPS spoofing machine learning (ML) intrusion detection system (IDS) UAVs |
| title | Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_full | Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_fullStr | Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_short | Ensemble Machine Learning Models Utilizing a Hybrid Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) Technique for Detecting GPS Spoofing Attacks Against Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_sort | ensemble machine learning models utilizing a hybrid recursive feature elimination rfe technique for detecting gps spoofing attacks against unmanned aerial vehicles |
| topic | cyber-attacks ensemble models GPS spoofing machine learning (ML) intrusion detection system (IDS) UAVs |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/8/2388 |
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