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A University of Michigan-led research team in Ann Arbor is set to begin large-scale testing of Battery Sleuth, a vehicle security system that can protect against sophisticated wireless hacking, old-school jimmying, and everything in between.

The test project is the result of a new $1.2 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

Battery Sleuth bypasses both the wireless communication that key fobs depend on and the onboard communication network that are used in today’s vehicles. Instead, it authenticates drivers by measuring voltage fluctuations in a vehicle’s electrical system. Drivers interact with it through a keypad device plugged into the auxiliary power outlet.

“The great thing about the power outlet is its simplicity — it’s just a wire connected to the battery, so there’s nothing to hack,” says Kang Shin, the lead researcher on the project and the Kevin and Nancy O’Connor professor of computer science at U-M. “And creating voltage fluctuations with components like windshield wipers or door locks is even simpler.”

Battery Sleuth delivers a predetermined series of voltage fluctuations to the car’s electrical system when the driver enters a numerical code into the keypad. A receiver then recognizes this fingerprint and enables the vehicle to start. Drivers also can deliver the voltage fluctuation manually using auxiliary functions that draw battery power.

“The idea of measuring fluctuations in a car’s electrical system seems simple, but designing one device that can do it accurately on thousands of different vehicle models in varying environmental conditions gets quite complicated,” says Liang He, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Colorado Denver, and a researcher on the project. “We’re working to design a system that’s smart enough to measure the parameters of the vehicle it’s installed on and then customize itself to work effectively on that vehicle.”

Battery Sleuth also has defenses to guard against hacking or physical attacks on the device itself, including a siren that sounds if illegitimate activity is detected and a resistor that shuts down the vehicle’s electrical system if an unauthorized power source is connected to the vehicle. The system is designed to work as either an add-on to existing vehicles or a permanently installed component on new vehicles.

In a field test study on eight vehicles published in July 2022, the researchers showed that a prototype of Battery Sleuth was more than 99.9 percent effective at detecting and preventing illegitimate activity without interfering with normal vehicle operation. The team plans to use the new grant to fund more extensive testing at U-M’s Mcity test facility.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Computer and Network Systems under the Computer Science and Engineering Directorate.