# Compositionally Safe Construction of Autonomous Driving Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11995 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11995/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Adversarial scenarios and safety testing, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving.
- Builds on 11 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 May 2024.

## Placed in

- End-to-end autonomous driving / [Adversarial scenarios and safety testing](https://mlsanity.com/driving/adversarial-scenarios-and-safety-testing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [End-to-end Autonomous Driving: Challenges and Frontiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16927/) (2023)
- [TransFuser: Imitation with Transformer-Based Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15997/) (2022)
- [Safety-Enhanced Autonomous Driving Using Interpretable Sensor Fusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14024/) (2022)
- [Model-Based Imitation Learning for Urban Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07729/) (2022)
- [On a Formal Model of Safe and Scalable Self-driving Cars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.06374/) (2017)
- [Milestones in Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Vehicles Part I: Control, Computing System Design, Communication, HD Map, Testing, and Human Behaviors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11239/) (2023)
- [Responsibility-Sensitive Safety: an Introduction with an Eye to Logical Foundations and Formalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03418/) (2022)
- [Specification and Validation of Autonomous Driving Systems: A Multilevel Semantic Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.06478/) (2021)
- [Assume/Guarantee Contracts for Dynamical Systems: Theory and Computational Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.12657/) (2020)
- [Correct-By-Construction Design of Adaptive Cruise Control with Control Barrier Functions Under Safety and Regulatory Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14110/) (2022)
- [Correct by Design Coordination of Autonomous Driving Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.10037/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Systems Engineering for Autonomous Vehicles; Supervising AI using Large Language Models (SSuperLLM)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.10839/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Developing safe autonomous driving systems is a major scientific and technical challenge. Existing AI-based end-to-end solutions do not offer the necessary safety guarantees, while traditional systems engineering approaches are defeated by the complexity of the problem. We study a method for building compositionally safe autonomous driving systems, based on the assumption that the capability to drive boils down to the coordinated execution of a given set of driving operations. The assumption is substantiated by a compositionality result considering that autopilots are dynamic systems receiving a small number of types of driving configurations as input, each configuration defining a free space in its neighborhood. It is shown that safe driving for each type of configuration in the corresponding free space, implies safe driving for any possible scenario under some easy-to-check conditions concerning the transition between configurations. The designed autopilot comprises distinct control policies one per type of driving configurations, articulated in two consecutive phases. The first phase consists of carefully managing a potentially risky situation by virtually reducing speed, while the second phase consists of exiting the situation by accelerating. The autopilots designed use for their predictions simple functions characterizing the acceleration and deceleration capabilities of the vehicles. They cover the main driving operations, including entering a main road, overtaking, crossing intersections protected by traffic lights or signals, and driving on freeways. The results presented reinforce the case for solutions that incorporate mathematically elegant and robust decision methods that are safe by construction.