In the automobile industry, ensuring the safety of automated vehicles equipped
with the automated driving system (ADS) is becoming a significant focus due to
the increasing development and deployment of automated driving. Automated
driving depends on sensing both the external and internal environments of a
vehicle, utilizing perception sensors and algorithms, and electrical/electronic
(E/E) systems for situational awareness and response. ISO 21448 is the standard
for Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) that aims to ensure that the
ADS operate safely within their intended functionality. SOTIF focuses on
preventing or mitigating potential hazards that may arise from the limitations
or failures of the ADS, including hazards due to insufficiencies of
specification, or performance insufficiencies, as well as foreseeable misuse of
the intended functionality. However, the challenge lies in ensuring the safety
of vehicles despite the limited availability of extensive and systematic
literature on SOTIF. To address this challenge, a systematic literature review
(SLR) on SOTIF for the ADS is performed following the preferred reporting items
for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The objective is
to methodically gather and analyze the existing literature on SOTIF. The major
contributions of this paper are: (i) presenting a summary of the literature by
synthesizing and organizing the collective findings, methodologies, and insights
into distinct thematic groups, and (ii) summarizing and categorizing the
acknowledged limitations based on data extracted from an SLR of 51 research
papers published between 2018 and 2023. Furthermore, research gaps are
determined, a comparative analysis of methods supporting SOTIF is provided, and
supplementary insights from recent publications that address these gaps are
presented. Based on the findings, future research directions are proposed.