An Integrated Approach of Threat Analysis for Autonomous Vehicles Perception System

Automated vehicles are a revolutionary step in mobility, providing a safe and convenient riding experience while keeping the human-driving task minimal to none. Therefore, these intelligent vehicles are equipped with sophisticated perception sensors (e.g., cameras and radars), high-performance computers, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven algorithms, and connectivity with other internet-of-things (IoT) devices. This makes autonomous vehicles (AVs) a special kind of cyber-physical system (CPS) that is moving at speed in highly interactive and dynamic environments (e.g., public roads). Thus, AV is a potential target for cyber attackers to weaponize, compromising safety and mobility on the road. The first step in addressing this problem is to have a robust threat modeling framework that can address the evolving cyber-physical threats, especially to AV applications. In this regard, two areas are studied in this paper: the common practice of threat modeling in automotive and the ISO/SAE 21434 standard, and sensors and machine learning (ML) algorithms for AV perception systems and potential cyber-physical attacks. A comparative threat analysis for an AV perception system with the ISO/SAE 21434 standard and a system-theoretic process analysis for security (STPA-Sec) approach is also demonstrated in this paper. Based on the analysis, this paper proposes a robust threat analysis and risk assessment framework with mathematical modeling to identify cyber-physical threats to AV perception systems that are critical for the driving behaviors and complex interactions of AVs in their operational design domain.