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VLM-RL: A Unified Vision Language Models and Reinforcement Learning Framework for Safe Autonomous Driving

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arxiv 2412.15544 v1 pith:O2HFSJPR submitted 2024-12-20 cs.RO cs.AIcs.CV

Zilin Huang , Zihao Sheng , Yansong Qu , Junwei You , Sikai Chen This is my paper
classification cs.ROcs.AIcs.CV
keywords drivingrewardvlm-rllanguagelearningrewardsautonomousextensive
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL)-based methods for learning driving policies have gained increasing attention in the autonomous driving community and have achieved remarkable progress in various driving scenarios. However, traditional RL approaches rely on manually engineered rewards, which require extensive human effort and often lack generalizability. To address these limitations, we propose \textbf{VLM-RL}, a unified framework that integrates pre-trained Vision-Language Models (VLMs) with RL to generate reward signals using image observation and natural language goals. The core of VLM-RL is the contrasting language goal (CLG)-as-reward paradigm, which uses positive and negative language goals to generate semantic rewards. We further introduce a hierarchical reward synthesis approach that combines CLG-based semantic rewards with vehicle state information, improving reward stability and offering a more comprehensive reward signal. Additionally, a batch-processing technique is employed to optimize computational efficiency during training. Extensive experiments in the CARLA simulator demonstrate that VLM-RL outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving a 10.5\% reduction in collision rate, a 104.6\% increase in route completion rate, and robust generalization to unseen driving scenarios. Furthermore, VLM-RL can seamlessly integrate almost any standard RL algorithms, potentially revolutionizing the existing RL paradigm that relies on manual reward engineering and enabling continuous performance improvements. The demo video and code can be accessed at: https://zilin-huang.github.io/VLM-RL-website.

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Cited by 7 Pith papers

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