Asynchronous-Based Countermeasure for Stealthy Attack on Aperiodic Sampled-Data Control Systems

Guoliang Chen, Xinru Liu, Xiaoqiang Ren, Jianwei Xia, Ju H. Park

Abstract: This article investigates the design and countermeasure for a class of stealthy attack, called zero-dynamics attack, targeting aperiodic sampled-data control systems. From the viewpoint of attackers, the attack design strategy against aperiodic sampled-data control systems is proposed. The strategy ensures that the detection signal at sampling instants consistently remains zero, allowing the designed zero-dynamics attack to achieve stealthiness. From the perspective of defenders, asynchronous sampling-and-holding countermeasure by introducing time-gap is presented. This countermeasure effectively disrupts the stealthiness of zero-dynamics attack, realizing the attack detection and enhancing the system security. It is demonstrated that for each sampling interval, there is at least one time-gap caused by asynchronous sampling-and-holding that allows attack signal to be detected. Finally, the automatic voltage regulator system and the inverted pendulum system are taken to verify the stealthiness of the attack design strategy and the effectiveness of the asynchronous-based countermeasure.

External IDs:doi:10.1109/tac.2025.3552745