A Survey on Sensor Failures in Autonomous Vehicles: Challenges and Solutions

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
• Automotive Engineering
• Sensor Technology

Background:

• Autonomous vehicles (AVs) depend on sensors for environmental perception and decision-making.
• Sensor failures in AVs can lead to control errors, posing significant safety risks.
• Understanding sensor failure modes is crucial for developing fault-tolerant systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive overview of sensors used in current autonomous vehicles.
• To categorize common sensor failures, including radar interference, detection ambiguities, and camera image issues.
• To review existing mitigation strategies for sensor failures, such as sensor fusion, redundancy, and calibration.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review of 108 publications.
• Categorization of AV sensor types and their failure modes.
• Analysis of fault-tolerant and fault-masking strategies.

Main Results:

• Identified key sensors in AVs and their operational principles.
• Detailed common failure mechanisms across different sensor modalities.
• Summarized the effectiveness of various mitigation techniques like sensor fusion and redundancy.

Conclusions:

• Sensor reliability is a critical challenge for safe AV operation.
• Effective mitigation strategies are essential to address sensor vulnerabilities.
• Further research in sensor failure analysis and robust fault tolerance is vital for advancing AV safety.