Sensors in Autonomous Vehicles: A Survey

Research and technology in autonomous vehicles is beginning to become well recognized among computer scientists and engineers. Autonomous vehicles contain a combination of global positioning system (GPS), light detection and ranging (LIDAR), cameras, radio detection and ranging (RADAR), and ultrasonic sensors (which are hardly ever included). These autonomous vehicles use no less than two sensing modalities and usually have three or more. The goal of this research is to determine which sensor to use depending on the functionality of the autonomous vehicle and analyze the similarities and differences of sensor configurations (which may come from different industries too). This study summarizes sensors in four industries: personal vehicles, public transportation, smart farming, and logistics. In addition, the paper includes advantages and disadvantages of how each sensor configuration are helpful by taking into consideration the activity that has to be achieved in the autonomous vehicle. A table of results is incorporated to organize most of the sensors’ availability in the market and their advantages and disadvantages. After comparing each sensor configuration, recommendations are going to be proposed for different scenarios in which some types of sensors will be more useful than others.