Neural Reconstruction of LiDAR Point Clouds under Jamming Attacks via Full-Waveform Representation and Simultaneous Laser Sensing

arXiv cs.CV / 4/2/2026

💬 OpinionSignals & Early TrendsIdeas & Deep AnalysisModels & Research

Key Points

  • The paper addresses how high-frequency jamming pulses can fully blind LiDAR sensors by drowning out legitimate returns, causing point clouds to become randomized under attack.
  • It finds that although point-cloud outputs degrade, the underlying full-waveform data preserves distinguishable signatures that can separate attack signals from genuine object reflections.
  • The proposed PULSAR-Net reconstructs authentic point clouds under jamming attacks using a U-Net-style model with axial spatial attention tailored to detect attack-induced patterns in the full-waveform representation.
  • To overcome dataset limitations, the authors create a physics-aware synthetic data pipeline that generates realistic full-waveform representations under jamming conditions.
  • Reported results show 92% reconstruction for vehicles in real-world static scenarios and 73% in real-world driving scenarios, despite training exclusively on synthetic full-waveform data.

Abstract

LiDAR sensors are critical for autonomous driving perception, yet remain vulnerable to spoofing attacks. Jamming attacks inject high-frequency laser pulses that completely blind LiDAR sensors by overwhelming authentic returns with malicious signals. We discover that while point clouds become randomized, the underlying full-waveform data retains distinguishable signatures between attack and legitimate signals. In this work, we propose PULSAR-Net, capable of reconstructing authentic point clouds under jamming attacks by leveraging previously underutilized intermediate full-waveform representations and simultaneous laser sensing in modern LiDAR systems. PULSAR-Net adopts a novel U-Net architecture with axial spatial attention mechanisms specifically designed to identify attack-induced signals from authentic object returns in the full-waveform representation. To address the lack of full-waveform representations in existing LiDAR datasets under jamming attacks, we introduce a physics-aware dataset generation pipeline that synthesizes realistic full-waveform representations under jamming attacks. Despite being trained exclusively on synthetic data, PULSAR-Net achieves reconstruction rates of 92% and 73% for vehicles obscured by jamming attacks in real-world static and driving scenarios, respectively.