Survey of Navigational Perception Sensors’ Security in Autonomous Vehicles

The adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs) significantly increased in recent years, playing a crucial role in enhancing transportation safety and efficiency, expanding mobility options, and reducing user costs. However, as AVs become more connected and automated, they also become more susceptible to malicious attacks, making it imperative to prioritize their security. Specifically, AVs are vulnerable to a range of cyber-threats, leading to a growing body of literature on potential cyberattacks targeting AVs. A key focus of existing research is understanding these threats and proposing mitigation strategies, particularly those aimed at attacks on navigational perception sensors, which are critical to AV navigation and decision-making. AVs rely on an array of navigational perception sensors, including LiDAR, cameras, RADAR, global positioning system (GPS) sensors, and ultrasonic sensors, to ensure secure and safe operation. However, adversarial manipulation of these sensors can compromise an AV’s navigational perception system, potentially leading to catastrophic consequences. While existing surveys provide valuable insights on AV cybersecurity challenges, several gaps remain unexplored, such as hardware security issues in AVs, analyzing sensor fusion attacks and evaluating practical defense implementations. To address these gaps, this paper makes a novel contribution by offering a comprehensive review of sensor fusion vulnerabilities that have not been sufficiently addressed in previous literature, specifically focusing on the compounded effects of sensor manipulation in AVs. In addition, this paper introduces a new classification of sensor vulnerabilities, highlighting practical defense mechanisms based on real-world simulation and testbed environments, a key contribution not explored in earlier works. We also introduce a detailed classification of sensor vulnerabilities, categorize the attacks that exploit these vulnerabilities, and critically assess existing countermeasures and defense mechanisms. Our study provides unique insights into the practical implementation of these countermeasures by reviewing simulation and testbed frameworks, which have been underrepresented in prior research. This approach aims to support the development of more robust security solutions for AVs.