Requirements Engineering for Autonomous Vehicles: A Systematic Literature Review

Context: Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will transform the way we live and work. Several benefits are envisaged, including: reduction in traffic deaths, drop in harmful emissions, improvement in fuel economy, reduction in travel time, and consumer savings. Indeed, the trend in the automobile industry is the development of AVs in preparation for the introduction and mass implementation of driverless vehicles. However, given the complexity and increasing connectivity of the AV, the challenges for effective and efficient development are immense. Many problems are related to misconceptions in the requirements engineering phase for AVs. Hence, a Requirements Engineering (RE) process is crucial in the development of AVs. Objective: The purpose of this work is to identify and analyse the current RE approaches used for AVs development. The analysis is based on answers related to the type of RE problems addressed by the study, the RE phases covered by the approach, requirements modelling styles used, the type of requirements described in the study, the specific AVs considered in the study, and the open problems reported. Method: We conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) as the basis for our work. Results: Our SLR draws on 31 studies in which we identified the RE problems addressed by the studies and the phases of the RE processes considered. We also uncovered the languages and description styles used to describe the requirementes of the AVs. Special attention was paid to the non-functional requirements of interest. Different types of AVs were identified. Last but not least, several challenges were revealed. Conclusions: This paper reports the current state of the art of RE for AVs and identifies some open issues that deserve further investigation.