Cellular Localization for Autonomous Driving: A Function Pull Approach to Safety-Critical Wireless Localization

Cellular localization has received marked attention in academia and in industry, as indicated by a rapidly expanding volume of literature specific to vehicular environments. Impressive results have been shown for a number of problems as measured by metrics such as accuracy and latency. This article identifies five important requirements for cellular localization for safety-critical systems with a particular focus on autonomous driving (AD) and puts them in the context of industrial and academic trends and standardization. We show why autonomous operation requires special consideration and suggest research directions toward novel and practically implementable solutions, drawing lessons from decades of work on satellite-based localization for aviation landing systems. In addition, we highlight the benefit of cellular localization technology for safety-critical autonomous systems, showing the utility of a satellite-navigation independent absolute localization sensor with error overbounding.