Public Key Infrastructure in Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems

2018

Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) enable vehicles and

infrastructure to exchange information and provide users with an enhanced

situation overview. It can provide early warning in potentially

dangerous situations, and help increase safety and efficiency on European

roads. This thesis explores the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

in a Cooperative Intelligent Transport System, and how it can be used

to achieve authentication within the system. The first part of the thesis

consists of a theoretical presentation of C-ITS and PKI. The overall structure

of the trust hierarchy is discussed before the technical specifications

and requirements of the system are introduced.

The second part describes an experimental implementation of a PKI in a

C-ITS test network. By creating an ITS certificate hierarchy, and modifying

the configuration of the Dynniq ITS units, message authentication

was successfully introduced to the network. The certificate hierarchy was

generated using both OpenSSL and itssec, where the use of the itssec tool

proved successful. Multiple configurations were tested, and the results

were analyzed using supplied applications and Wireshark. After the

results were verified, the PKI was expanded to include an Authorization

Authority. The use of an HTTP file-server and the MQTT protocol

were explored in order to handle network authentication and certificate

distribution. Both options were assessed as viable candidates for more

extensive testing in the future.

NTNU