Autonomous Driving(AD) has garnered significant attention in recent years across multiple domains. Despite notable advancements in algorithms and hardware, large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles remains constrained by the lack of adequate real-time guarantees. This paper comprehensively investigates real-time assurance challenges in AD systems from theoretical and practical perspectives. First, we introduce foundational concepts of real-time systems and analyze common modeling approaches, including the multi-rate DAG and processing chain DAG models. We then delve into the task scheduling and communication mechanisms of three representative middleware systems—ROS2, Cyber, and ERDOS—and the seL4 operating system. Our analysis reveals their underlying design philosophies and optimization strategies for real-time performance. The findings highlight the critical difficulty of meeting stringent real-time requirements in autonomous systems. By offering insights into current limitations and opportunities for improvement, this paper aims to establish a deeper understanding of real-time assurance issues and encourage greater focus on system-level guarantees within the AD community.
Wu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.