The 4D millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar, capable of measuring the range, azimuth, elevation, and velocity of targets, has attracted considerable interest in the autonomous driving community. This is attributed to its robustness in extreme environments and outstanding velocity and elevation measurement capabilities. However, despite the rapid development of research related to its sensing theory and application, there is a notable lack of surveys on the topic of 4D mmWave radar. To address this gap and foster future research in this area, this paper presents a comprehensive survey on the use of 4D mmWave radar in autonomous driving. Reviews on the theoretical background and progress of 4D mmWave radars are presented first, including the signal processing flow, resolution improvement ways, extrinsic calibration process, and point cloud generation methods. Then it introduces related datasets and application algorithms in autonomous driving perception and localization and mapping tasks. Finally, this paper concludes by predicting future trends in the field of 4D mmWave radar. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first survey specifically for the 4D mmWave radar.

翻译：具备测量目标距离、方位角、俯仰角和速度能力的4D毫米波雷达，因其在极端环境下的鲁棒性以及卓越的速度和俯仰角测量能力，引起了自动驾驶领域的广泛关注。然而，尽管其传感理论与应用相关研究发展迅速，但关于4D毫米波雷达的综述仍明显匮乏。为填补这一空白并推动该领域的未来研究，本文对4D毫米波雷达在自动驾驶中的应用进行了全面综述。首先回顾了4D毫米波雷达的理论背景与研究进展，包括信号处理流程、分辨率提升方法、外参标定流程及点云生成技术。随后介绍了自动驾驶感知、定位与建图任务中的相关数据集与算法应用。最后，本文对4D毫米波雷达领域的未来发展趋势进行了预测。据我们所知，这是首次专门针对4D毫米波雷达的综述。