Worst-Case Stealthy Attacks on Stochastic Event-Based State Estimation

This article considers the worst-case stealthy attack strategies on stochastic event-based state estimation. Smart sensors equipped with local event-triggered Kalman filters are used to transmit innovations. Contrary to classic Kalman filters, the transmitted innovation screened by the stochastic decision rule does not follow a Gaussian distribution. A type of distribution called complete Gaussian crater is defined and analyzed, which is essential for designing stealthy attacks. The evolution of the estimation error covariance under attacks is obtained. Stealthy attacks that yield the greatest estimation errors under constraints on transmission rates and probability distributions are obtained and analyzed. The system performance degradation caused by different attacks is evaluated via simulations.