A Peer-to-Peer Federated Learning Framework for Intrusion Detection in Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

As autonomous vehicles (AVs) increasingly rely on interconnected systems for enhanced functionality, they also face heightened cyberattack vulnerability. This study introduces a decentralized peer-to-peer federated learning framework to improve intrusion detection in AV environments while preserving data privacy. A novel soft-reordering one-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (SR-1CNN) is proposed as the detection engine, capable of identifying known and unknown threats with high accuracy. The framework allows vehicles to communicate directly in a mesh topology, sharing model parameters asynchronously, thus eliminating dependency on centralized servers and mitigating single points of failure.

The SR-1CNN model was tested on two datasets: NSL-KDD and Car Hacking, under both independent and non-independent data distribution scenarios. The results demonstrate the model’s robustness, achieving detection accuracies of 94.39% on the NSL-KDD dataset and 99.97% on the Car Hacking dataset in independent settings while maintaining strong performance in non-independent configurations. These findings underline the framework’s potential to enhance cybersecurity in AV networks by addressing data heterogeneity and preserving user privacy.

This research contributes to the field of AV security by offering a scalable, privacy-conscious intrusion detection solution. Future work will focus on optimizing the SR-1CNN architecture, exploring vertical federated learning approaches, and validating the framework in real-world autonomous vehicle environments to ensure its practical applicability and scalability.