**2. How does autonomous vehicle work?**

Generally, in addition to the hardware requirements, a high-level autonomous vehicle software module comprises of the perception and vision, localization and mapping as well as the guidance, navigation and control modules (**Figure 1**). The combination of these modules yields an ability to compensate for the driver's absence during the navigation. AV, in any case, should possess the ability to measure the risk surrounding its environment as well as guiding the vehicle motion. In addition, a driverless vehicle is also expected to compensate for the absence of a human driver by possessing the required intelligence to mimic the human driving behavior of the vehicle.

The smooth and comfortable automated driving experience requires the expertise of interdisciplinary fields, which includes the development of required hardware and software integration. In the case of road navigation of an autonomous vehicle, the vehicle is typically expected to navigate independently during the entire

*Path Planning for Autonomous Vehicles - Ensuring Reliable Driverless Navigation...*

driving process. This implies that the vehicle is fully responsible for preventing any unwanted incidents.

In a controlled environment, the use of predefined information of the environment is usually sufficient. However, in the risky scenario that demands the AV to react to its environment, the usage of dependable path planning strategies to replan its current reference or trajectory is demanded.
