CNA continuously invests in innovative, independent research projects that explore new tools and approaches for addressing emerging national safety and security challenges. These projects are showcased in the CNA Innovation Incubator (CNAi2). From analyzing machine learning for public safety to developing a Navy Force Design Lab, CNA's most creative thinkers are continuously working on new approaches to help government solve the nation’s toughest problems. In our Meet the Innovator series, we interview the analysts behind CNAi2 projects about their work and their innovation process.
Q: You’ve led several projects that have developed new approaches toward keeping uncrewed aircraft traffic secure. What are some examples of innovation in this work?
Monsalve: One of the first examples would be a CNA-funded project to compete in a prize challenge established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to address the cybersecurity of drones used for public safety. NIST had initiated the challenge to highlight to the public safety community how their drone operations could be vulnerable to cyberattacks and then offer some solutions.
What we found was that many of these drone operators basically pull these drones out of the box and use them as is. There's insufficient guidance from manufacturers with simple issues such as vulnerable default settings, like making the default username and password “username” and “password.” We demonstrated, through the development of a simple device, that a bad actor could hijack such an unprotected drone, take over the control of it, and cause the failure of a public safety mission.
The key innovative part of our approach was the laser-focus on the end user. We didn't want to over-complicate things. To be successful, our solution couldn’t be over the heads of the police and emergency management first responders using these drones. We had in our minds this key mantra that just because you are a drone operator does not mean you are an IT professional. Our solution also had to be low cost, something a public safety officer could actually implement, because they've got limited budgets for these types of technologies.
We developed the concept for a little widget that can remotely communicate with a fleet of drones and automatically fix passwords, usernames, network IDs, things like that, then let the operator know what the updated settings are. No one has to dig through the manual to determine where any potential vulnerable settings may be. Our technology partner RIIS built the device, and we proved it at a police testing ground. The innovation is in the simplicity. A lot of times when you talk about cybersecurity topics to people, their eyes glaze over, and it's hard for them to grasp things. But this was easy to understand, and we were able to really get people's attention—and we won the challenge.
Since then, we’ve broadened this approach into work for the FAA evaluating a range of vulnerabilities in drones that impact the government agencies that use them.
We kept that approach of innovating for simplicity for another CNA-funded project to develop a drone that first responders could use indoors, like in a burning building. Focusing on the end user, we worked with the George Mason University Police Department, which has a really strong drone program. To be innovative, you have to know what you know and know what you don't know. From them, we learned that flyability is a critical feature when flying indoors. Some of these drones are really finicky; you get a lot of weird aerodynamic patterns indoors, like when you’re flying up a staircase or in smaller rooms. So we focused our innovation on flyability, not bells and whistles like super-high-resolution cameras and infrared vision. Again with RIIS, we built a very flyable UAS, which we call the CNA‐RIIS UAS Indoor Solution for Emergency Response, or CRUISER™.
Q: What is your personal approach to innovation?
Monsalve: I've always had a different way of looking at problems. Sometimes that can lead to wrong answers, of course, but I always try and think, “What are the world of solutions here? Am I being appropriately broad in my thinking?”
There are a few different parts to that. One is just that I try and stay on top of current trends in technology or in the different domains that I'm working in—keeping up with the latest and greatest. Another is that I like to bring in as many people as possible who are outside of the specific domain I’m working in. I know that if I bring five other people into that problem, they might think of it in five different ways. I'm in the side of CNA that works with civilian agencies, but CNA also has analysts who are familiar with drone operations in the Department of Defense. I brought some of those folks into my latest project. Bringing in people who are thinking about something differently always leads to ideas that surprise me. It opens up the solution space. And that’s useful when I'm thinking about a problem.
But everyone in the room has to be engaged. Being disengaged is easier than ever now. In a Zoom meeting, you can have your camera off and be multitasking—we’re all busy, I get it. But if 12 people are in the meeting and only three are participating, I’m missing three-quarters of the ideas in the room. I'm always pushing for in-person or at least on-camera conversations. I think it's a really important part of innovation.
Q: You’ve been at CNA for six years after some time in academia as a post-doctoral researcher. How would you characterize CNA’s approach to innovation?
Monsalve: The fact that CNA will fund our innovative ideas is unique. It's the thing I always mention when I talk to people about CNA. I probably appreciate this in part at least because it scratches that academia itch that goes back to the earliest days of my career. The work I do for clients is great; I like working on challenging, complex issues for the government. But one of the coolest parts about what we do at CNA is that we have this opportunity to just come up with ideas out of thin air. If you have a good idea, and you can justify it and explain how it could help the government one day, you can get $100,000 to fund an interesting little project about it. They could do something else with that money. I think the fact that the company is willing to invest that money in our analysts and our ideas shows their dedication to innovation. It inspires us all to keep innovating every day.
