With the significant advancement of sensor and communication technology and the reliable application of obstacle detection techniques and algorithms, automated driving is becoming a pivotal technology that can revolutionize the future of transportation and mobility. Sensors are fundamental to the perception of vehicle surroundings in an automated driving system, and the use and performance of multiple integrated sensors can directly determine the safety and feasibility of automated driving vehicles. Sensor calibration is the foundation block of any autonomous system and its constituent sensors and must be performed correctly before sensor fusion and obstacle detection processes may be implemented. This paper evaluates the capabilities and the technical performance of sensors which are commonly employed in autonomous vehicles, primarily focusing on a large selection of vision cameras, LiDAR sensors, and radar sensors and the various conditions in which such sensors may operate in practice. We present an overview of the three primary categories of sensor calibration and review existing open-source calibration packages for multi-sensor calibration and their compatibility with numerous commercial sensors. We also summarize the three main approaches to sensor fusion and review current state-of-the-art multi-sensor fusion techniques and algorithms for object detection in autonomous driving applications. The current paper, therefore, provides an end-to-end review of the hardware and software methods required for sensor fusion object detection. We conclude by highlighting some of the challenges in the sensor fusion field and propose possible future research directions for automated driving systems.

The market for autonomous vehicles (AV) is expected to experience significant growth over the coming decades and to revolutionize the future of transportation and mobility. The AV is a vehicle that is capable of perceiving its environment and perform driving tasks safely and efficiently with little or no human intervention and is anticipated to eventually replace conventional vehicles. Self-driving vehicles employ various sensors to sense and perceive their surroundings and, also rely on advances in 5G communication technology to achieve this objective. Sensors are fundamental to the perception of surroundings and the development of sensor technologies associated with AVs has advanced at a significant pace in recent years. Despite remarkable advancements, sensors can still fail to operate as required, due to for example, hardware defects, noise and environment conditions. Hence, it is not desirable to rely on a single sensor for any autonomous driving task. The practical approaches shown in recent research is to incorporate multiple, complementary sensors to overcome the shortcomings of individual sensors operating independently. This article reviews the technical performance and capabilities of sensors applicable to autonomous vehicles, mainly focusing on vision cameras, LiDAR and Radar sensors. The review also considers the compatibility of sensors with various software systems enabling the multi-sensor fusion approach for obstacle detection. This review article concludes by highlighting some of the challenges and possible future research directions.

Over the last 10 years, huge advances have been made in the areas of sensor technologies and processing platforms, pushing forward developments in the field of autonomous vehicles, mostly represented by self-driving cars. However, the complexity of these systems has been also increased in terms of the hardware and software within them, especially for the perception stage in which the goal is to create a reliable representation of the vehicle and the world. In order to manage this complexity, several architectural models have been proposed as guidelines to design, develop, operate and deploy self-driving solutions for real applications. In this work, a review on autonomous driving architectures is presented, classifying them into technical or functional architectures depending on the domain of their definition. In addition, the perception stage of self-driving solutions is analysed as a component of the architectures, detailing into the sensing part and how data fusion is used to perform localisation, mapping and object detection. Finally, the paper is concluded with additional thoughts on the actual status and future trends in the field.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) rely heavily on multi-sensor fusion to perceive their environment and make critical, real-time decisions by integrating data from various sensors such as radar, cameras, Lidar, and GPS. However, the complexity of these systems often leads to a lack of transparency, posing challenges in terms of safety, accountability, and public trust. This review investigates the intersection of multi-sensor fusion and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), aiming to address the challenges of implementing accurate and interpretable AV systems. We systematically review cutting-edge multi-sensor fusion techniques, along with various explainability approaches, in the context of AV systems. While multi-sensor fusion technologies have achieved significant advancement in improving AV perception, the lack of transparency and explainability in autonomous decision-making remains a primary challenge. Our findings underscore the necessity of a balanced approach to integrating XAI and multi-sensor fusion in autonomous driving applications, acknowledging the trade-offs between real-time performance and explainability. The key challenges identified span a range of technical, social, ethical, and regulatory aspects. We conclude by underscoring the importance of developing techniques that ensure real-time explainability, specifically in high-stakes applications, to stakeholders without compromising safety and accuracy, as well as outlining future research directions aimed at bridging the gap between high-performance multi-sensor fusion and trustworthy explainability in autonomous driving systems.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) rely heavily on multi-sensor fusion to perceive their environment and make critical, real-time decisions by integrating data from various sensors such as radar, cameras, Lidar, and GPS. However, the complexity of these systems often leads to a lack of transparency, posing challenges in terms of safety, accountability, and public trust. This review investigates the intersection of multi-sensor fusion and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), aiming to address the challenges of implementing accurate and interpretable AV systems. We systematically review cutting-edge multi-sensor fusion techniques, along with various explainability approaches, in the context of AV systems. While multi-sensor fusion technologies have achieved significant advancement in improving AV perception, the lack of transparency and explainability in autonomous decision-making remains a primary challenge. Our findings underscore the necessity of a balanced approach to integrating XAI and multi-sensor fusion in autonomous driving applications, acknowledging the trade-offs between real-time performance and explainability. The key challenges identified span a range of technical, social, ethical, and regulatory aspects. We conclude by underscoring the importance of developing techniques that ensure real-time explainability, specifically in high-stakes applications, to stakeholders without compromising safety and accuracy, as well as outlining future research directions aim at bridging the gap between high-performance multi-sensor fusion and trustworthy explainability in autonomous driving systems.

Industry 4.0 or fourth industrial revolution elevates the computerization of Industry 3.0 and enhances it with smart and autonomous systems driven by data and Machine Learning. This paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of sensors and the architecture of multi-sensor setup for object detection. Here we consider the case of autonomous systems in for large heavy vehicles off-road in industrial environments with the use of camera sensor, LiDAR sensor, and radar sensor. Understanding the vehicles surroundings is a vital task in autonomous operation where personnel and other obstacles present significant hazard of collision. This paper review further discusses the challenges of time synchronisation on sensor data acquisition in multi-modal sensor fusion for personnel and object detection, and details a solution implemented in a Python environment.