Speaker Authorization for Air Traffic Control Security

The number of incidents in which unauthorized persons break into frequencies used by Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) and give false instructions to pilots, or transmit fake emergency calls, is a permanent and apparently growing threat. One of the measures against such attacks could be to use automatic speaker recognition on the voice radio channel to disclose the potential unauthorized speaker. This work describes the solution for a speaker authorization system in the Security of Air Transport Infrastructures of Europe (SATIE) project, presents the architecture of the system, gives details on training and testing procedures, analyses the influence of the number of authorized persons on the system’s performance and describes how the system was adapted to work on the radio channel.