NDSS 2025 – Interventional Root Cause Analysis Of Failures In Multi-Sensor Fusion Perception Systems

Session 6C: Sensor Attacks

Authors, Creators & Presenters: Shuguang Wang (City University of Hong Kong), Qian Zhou (City University of Hong Kong), Kui Wu (University of Victoria), Jinghuai Deng (City University of Hong Kong), Dapeng Wu (City University of Hong Kong), Wei-Bin Lee (Information Security Center, Hon Hai Research Institute), Jianping Wang (City University of Hong Kong)
PAPERNDSS 2025 – Interventional Root Cause Analysis Of Failures In Multi-Sensor Fusion Perception Systems
Autonomous driving systems (ADS) heavily depend on multi-sensor fusion (MSF) perception systems to process sensor data and improve the accuracy of environmental perception. However, MSF cannot completely eliminate uncertainties, and faults in multiple modules will lead to perception failures. Thus, identifying the root causes of these perception failures is crucial to ensure the reliability of MSF perception systems. Traditional methods for identifying perception failures, such as anomaly detection and runtime monitoring, are limited because they do not account for causal relationships between faults in multiple modules and overall system failure. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel approach called interventional root cause analysis (IRCA). IRCA leverages the directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure of MSF to develop a hierarchical structural causal model (H-SCM), which effectively addresses the complexities of causal relationships. Our approach uses a divide-and-conquer pruning algorithm to encompass multiple causal modules within a causal path and to pinpoint intervention targets. We implement IRCA and evaluate its performance using real fault scenarios and synthetic scenarios with injected faults in the ADS Autoware. The average F1-score of IRCA in real fault scenarios is over 95%. We also illustrate the effectiveness of IRCA on an autonomous vehicle testbed equipped with Autoware, as well as a cross-platform evaluation using Apollo. The results show that IRCA can efficiently identify the causal paths leading to failures and significantly enhance the safety of ADS.

ABOUT NDSSThe Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) fosters information exchange among researchers and practitioners of network and distributed system security. The target audience includes those interested in practical aspects of network and distributed system security, with a focus on actual system design and implementation. A major goal is to encourage and enable the Internet community to apply, deploy, and advance the state of available security technologies.

Our thanks to the Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium for publishing their Creators, Authors and Presenter’s superb NDSS Symposium 2025 Conference content on the Organizations’ YouTube Channel.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Infosecurity.US authored by Marc Handelman. Read the original post at: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/s9UX5S_dwXM?si=cBE0CyvNAz1u_m6K

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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