A Systematic Literature Review on Safety of the Intended Functionality for Automated Driving Systems

2025-03-04

AI Summary

The field of Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) for Automated Driving Systems (ADS) lacks a systematic, up-to-date literature review. Method: Following the PRISMA guidelines, this study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) of 51 core publications from 2018–2023 and introduces a novel thematic clustering coding approach to map the SOTIF research landscape. Contribution/Results: The analysis yields a comprehensive SOTIF research taxonomy comprising five thematic clusters and identifies seven recurring methodological limitations. It precisely pinpoints critical research gaps and proposes four actionable, prioritized future research directions. This work establishes a structured knowledge foundation to advance SOTIF theory development, methodological refinement, and international standardization efforts.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories
• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

In the automobile industry, ensuring the safety of automated vehicles equipped with the Automated Driving System (ADS) is becoming a significant focus due to the increasing development and deployment of automated driving. Automated driving depends on sensing both the external and internal environments of a vehicle, utilizing perception sensors and algorithms, and Electrical/Electronic (E/E) systems for situational awareness and response. ISO 21448 is the standard for Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) that aims to ensure that the ADS operate safely within their intended functionality. SOTIF focuses on preventing or mitigating potential hazards that may arise from the limitations or failures of the ADS, including hazards due to insufficiencies of specification, or performance insufficiencies, as well as foreseeable misuse of the intended functionality. However, the challenge lies in ensuring the safety of vehicles despite the limited availability of extensive and systematic literature on SOTIF. To address this challenge, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on SOTIF for the ADS is performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The objective is to methodically gather and analyze the existing literature on SOTIF. The major contributions of this paper are: (i) presenting a summary of the literature by synthesizing and organizing the collective findings, methodologies, and insights into distinct thematic groups, and (ii) summarizing and categorizing the acknowledged limitations based on data extracted from an SLR of 51 research papers published between 2018 and 2023. Furthermore, research gaps are determined, and future research directions are proposed.

Problem

• Ensuring safety of Automated Driving Systems (ADS) functionality.
• Addressing hazards from ADS limitations and foreseeable misuse.
• Conducting a Systematic Literature Review on SOTIF for ADS.

Innovation

• Systematic Literature Review on SOTIF
• Following PRISMA guidelines for analysis
• Categorizing limitations from 51 papers