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Topic · Automotive Engineering

Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety

Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety is a research topic within Automotive Engineering. Science Explorer counts 30k research works in it since 1956. 9.7% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the technology and safety systems related to autonomous vehicles, including trajectory prediction, driver assistance systems, lane detection, collision avoidance, pedestrian behavior analysis, sensor fusion, deep learning applications, urban driving challenges, and machine learning techniques.

  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Trajectory Prediction
  • Driver Assistance Systems
  • Lane Detection
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Pedestrian Behavior
  • Sensor Fusion
  • Deep Learning
  • Urban Driving
  • Machine Learning
Research works
30k
fractional, since 1956
In the world top 10%
2.9k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.7%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+75%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
47% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety

Which countries lead Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (5.2k and 1.7k works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 5.2k works
  2. 2 United States 1.7k works
  3. 3 India 1.5k works
  4. 4 Germany 747 works
  5. 5 South Korea 473 works
  6. 6 Japan 422 works
  7. 7 United Kingdom 322 works
  8. 8 Italy 262 works
  9. 9 Canada 254 works
  10. 10 France 223 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 46.8%United States: 15.5%India: 13.3%Germany: 6.7%6 others listed: 17.6%47%largest
China5,193 · 46.8%United States1,715 · 15.5%India1,476 · 13.3%Germany747 · 6.7%6 others listed1,957 · 17.6%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research?

By volume in 2022-now, Tongji University publishes the most Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research, followed by Tsinghua University and Beijing Institute of Technology.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Tongji UniversityChina 224 works
  2. 2 Tsinghua UniversityChina 193 works
  3. 3 Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 132 works
  4. 4 Jilin UniversityChina 128 works
  5. 5 Southeast UniversityChina 119 works
  6. 6 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 114 works
  7. 7 Chang'an UniversityChina 101 works
  8. 8 Beihang UniversityChina 100 works
  9. 9 Wuhan University of TechnologyChina 99 works
  10. 10 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 85 works

Who are the leading researchers in Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety include Xiangyu Zhang, Xiaogang Wang and Andrew Zisserman.

  1. 1 Xiangyu Zhang 327k citations
  2. 2 Xiaogang Wang China 260k citations
  3. 3 Andrew Zisserman United Kingdom 255k citations
  4. 4 Li Fei-Fei United States 225k citations
  5. 5 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  6. 6 L. Li France 211k citations
  7. 7 Trevor J. Darrell United States 206k citations
  8. 8 Qiang Zhang China 184k citations
  9. 9 Luc Van Gool Switzerland 177k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety?

The most cited paper in Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety is "Social LSTM: Human Trajectory Prediction in Crowded Spaces" (Alexandre Alahi, Kratarth Goel, Vignesh Ramanathan et al., 2016), with 3,626 citations. Next come "Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset" (3,246) and "A Survey of Motion Planning and Control Techniques for Self-Driving Urban Vehicles" (2,635).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Social LSTM: Human Trajectory Prediction in Crowded Spaces Alexandre Alahi, Kratarth Goel, Vignesh Ramanathan et al. Conference paperOpen access Jun 2016 3,626
2 Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset Pei Sun et al. Conference paper Jun 2020 3,246
3 A Survey of Motion Planning and Control Techniques for Self-Driving Urban Vehicles Brian A. Paden, Michal Čáp, Sze Zheng Yong et al. · IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles Mar 2016 2,635
4 A behavioural car-following model for computer simulation P G Gipps · Transportation Research Part B Methodological Apr 1981 2,381
5 AirSim: High-Fidelity Visual and Physical Simulation for Autonomous Vehicles Shital Shah, Debadeepta Dey, Chris Lovett et al. · Springer proceedings in advanced robotics Book chapter 2 Nov 2017 2,203
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research done?

The largest centres of Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Nanjing (China) and Xi'an (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Ingolstadt, Torrance and Dearborn.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 1k works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 519 works
  3. 3 NanjingChina 319 works
  4. 4 Xi'anChina 283 works
  5. 5 WuhanChina 232 works
  6. 6 ChongqingChina 210 works
  7. 7 ChennaiIndia 201 works
  8. 8 SeoulSouth Korea 198 works
  9. 9 TianjinChina 173 works
  10. 10 TokyoJapan 165 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. IngolstadtDE · 27.4 works47×
  2. TorranceUS · 21.3 works24×
  3. DearbornUS · 22.4 works22×
  4. Changchun23.0 works19×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety than the world average.

See Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety on the map

Where is the best place to study Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety?

Among universities, judged by research, Nanyang Technological University, Tsinghua University and Tongji University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 19.35%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Nanyang Technologica…Tsinghua UniversityJilin UniversityTongji University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 77.931.6%7.2×69 +85.4%
2Tsinghua UniversityChina 70.519.5%7.0×193 +97.2%
3Tongji UniversityChina 67.914.3%12.2×224 +142.1%
4Jilin UniversityChina 64.918.9%9.3×128 +96.9%
5Southeast UniversityChina 64.717.7%6.7×119 +151.5%
6Hong Kong University of Science and TechnologyChina 61.720.9%5.4×27 +180.1%
7University of Central FloridaUnited States 60.924.2%6.3×28 +48.1%
8Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 60.412.4%9.3×132 +131.5%
9Beihang UniversityChina 60.316.2%7.6×100 +121.8%
10Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 59.917.8%3.9×40 +287.3%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety, country by country

Is Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 75% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.059% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety0.066% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety9.7% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Questions people ask

Who leads self-driving car research?

By volume in 2022-now, Tongji University publishes the most Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety research, followed by Tsinghua University and Beijing Institute of Technology. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (5.2k and 1.7k works in 2022-now).

All 1,273 questions in the Question Catalogue

Discussion

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