mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

RL for autonomous driving and traffic

375 papers2 this weekMedium confidence in this grouping: mostly one topic, with blurry edgesMedium confidence in this grouping: mostly one topic, with blurry edges · About

Keywords: driving, traffic, autonomous, control, reinforcement

Key facts. RL for autonomous driving and traffic: 375 papers on arXiv since 2024 (data through 14 Oct 2026). 11 of its 375 mapped papers (3%) cite “CaRL: Learning Scalable Planning Policies with Simple Rewards” (2025, arXiv 2504.17838). 5 new papers 30 Sep–14 Oct.

What’s new

30 Sep – 14 Oct 2026

5 new papers, 30 Sep – 14 Oct; 2 this week.

  1. This week · 2
  2. Comprehensive Comparisons of Reinforcement Learning Algorithms in Autonomous Driving
  3. Beyond Safe Execution: Safe Online Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving with Value Calibration and Adaptive Guidance also fits: Safe and constrained RL
  4. Earlier · 3
  5. Adaptive Multi-Discriminator WGAN Framework for Resource-Constrained Internet of Vehicles Using Reinforcement Learning and Game Theory also fits: RL for energy, networks and operations
  6. Energy-Aware Path Following: Comparative Analysis of Reinforcement Learning and NMPC for Electric Vehicles
  7. Ramp Metering Control via Hybrid State Deep Reinforcement Learning in Partially Observable Connected Vehicle Environments

Foundations

Most cited by papers here

  1. CaRL: Learning Scalable Planning Policies with Simple Rewards2025cited by 11 here
  2. Synthesis of Model Predictive Control and Reinforcement Learning: Survey and Classification2025cited by 9 here
  3. A Review of Reward Functions for Reinforcement Learning in the context of Autonomous Driving2024cited by 8 here
  4. HAIM-DRL: Enhanced Human-in-the-loop Reinforcement Learning for Safe and Efficient Autonomous Driving2024cited by 7 here
  5. Think2Drive: Efficient Reinforcement Learning by Thinking in Latent World Model for Quasi-Realistic Autonomous Driving (in CARLA-v2)2024cited by 7 here

Lineage

The papers this direction builds on, oldest first.

Each paper on the line cites the one before.

  1. 2024Gen-Drive: Enhancing Diffusion Generative Driving Policies with Reward Modeling and Reinforcement Learning Fine-tuningcited by 5 here
  2. 2025CarPlanner: Consistent Auto-regressive Trajectory Planning for Large-scale Reinforcement Learning in Autonomous Drivingcited by 6 here
  3. 2025CaRL: Learning Scalable Planning Policies with Simple Rewardscited by 11 here
21 more it builds on, not in this chain
  1. 2024HAIM-DRL: Enhanced Human-in-the-loop Reinforcement Learning for Safe and Efficient Autonomous Drivingcited by 7 here
  2. 2024A Reinforcement Learning-Boosted Motion Planning Framework: Comprehensive Generalization Performance in Autonomous Drivingcited by 4 here
  3. 2024A Safe Reinforcement Learning driven Weights-varying Model Predictive Control for Autonomous Vehicle Motion Controlcited by 4 here
  4. 2024Informed Reinforcement Learning for Situation-Aware Traffic Rule Exceptionscited by 3 here
  5. 2024Discretionary Lane-Change Decision and Control via Parameterized Soft Actor-Critic for Hybrid Action Spacecited by 4 here
  6. 2024Think2Drive: Efficient Reinforcement Learning by Thinking in Latent World Model for Quasi-Realistic Autonomous Driving (in CARLA-v2)cited by 7 here
  7. 2024A Review of Reward Functions for Reinforcement Learning in the context of Autonomous Drivingcited by 8 here
  8. 2024Reinforcement learningcited by 3 here
  9. 2024Trust the Model Where It Trusts Itself -- Model-Based Actor-Critic with Uncertainty-Aware Rollout Adaptioncited by 3 here
  10. 2024HOPE: A Reinforcement Learning-based Hybrid Policy Path Planner for Diverse Parking Scenarioscited by 7 here
  11. 2024A Super-human Vision-based Reinforcement Learning Agent for Autonomous Racing in Gran Turismocited by 4 here
  12. 2024Gymnasium: A Standard Interface for Reinforcement Learning Environmentscited by 8 here
  13. 2024Introduction to Reinforcement Learningcited by 3 here
  14. 2024Diffusion Policy Policy Optimizationcited by 5 here
  15. 2024Autonomous Driving at Unsignalized Intersections: A Review of Decision-Making Challenges and Reinforcement Learning-Based Solutionscited by 3 here
  16. 2024Precise and Dexterous Robotic Manipulation via Human-in-the-Loop Reinforcement Learningcited by 3 here
  17. 2025Hybrid Action Based Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Objective Compatible Autonomous Drivingcited by 5 here
  18. 2025Synthesis of Model Predictive Control and Reinforcement Learning: Survey and Classificationcited by 9 here
  19. 2025A view on learning robust goal-conditioned value functions: Interplay between RL and MPCcited by 3 here
  20. 2025RL-OGM-Parking: Lidar OGM-Based Hybrid Reinforcement Learning Planner for Autonomous Parkingcited by 3 here
  21. 2025DiffusionDriveV2: Reinforcement Learning-Constrained Truncated Diffusion Modeling in End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 4 here

The 24 most cited of 196.

Browse

30 of 375, ranked 6–35

  1. 6HOPE: A Reinforcement Learning-based Hybrid Policy Path Planner for Diverse Parking Scenarios20247
  2. 7CarPlanner: Consistent Auto-regressive Trajectory Planning for Large-scale Reinforcement Learning in Autonomous Driving20256
  3. 8Hybrid Action Based Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Objective Compatible Autonomous Driving20255
  4. 9Gen-Drive: Enhancing Diffusion Generative Driving Policies with Reward Modeling and Reinforcement Learning Fine-tuning20245
  5. 10DiffusionDriveV2: Reinforcement Learning-Constrained Truncated Diffusion Modeling in End-to-End Autonomous Driving20254
  6. 11A Reinforcement Learning-Boosted Motion Planning Framework: Comprehensive Generalization Performance in Autonomous Driving20244
  7. 12A Safe Reinforcement Learning driven Weights-varying Model Predictive Control for Autonomous Vehicle Motion Control20244
  8. 13Discretionary Lane-Change Decision and Control via Parameterized Soft Actor-Critic for Hybrid Action Space20244
  9. 14A Super-human Vision-based Reinforcement Learning Agent for Autonomous Racing in Gran Turismo20244
  10. 15A view on learning robust goal-conditioned value functions: Interplay between RL and MPC20253
All 30
  1. 16RL-OGM-Parking: Lidar OGM-Based Hybrid Reinforcement Learning Planner for Autonomous Parking20253
  2. 17Informed Reinforcement Learning for Situation-Aware Traffic Rule Exceptions20243
  3. 18Autonomous Driving at Unsignalized Intersections: A Review of Decision-Making Challenges and Reinforcement Learning-Based Solutions20243
  4. 19TADPO: Reinforcement Learning Goes Off-road20262
  5. 20Beyond Self-Play and Scale: A Behavior Benchmark for Generalization in Autonomous Driving20262
  6. 21AdaWM: Adaptive World Model based Planning for Autonomous Driving20252
  7. 22Extensive Exploration in Complex Traffic Scenarios using Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning20252
  8. 23Safe Reinforcement Learning for Real-World Engine Control20252
  9. 24V-Max: A Reinforcement Learning Framework for Autonomous Driving20252
  10. 25Risk-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving: Improving Safety When Driving through Intersection20252
  11. 26Joint Pedestrian and Vehicle Traffic Optimization in Urban Environments using Reinforcement Learning20252
  12. 27A Champion-level Vision-based Reinforcement Learning Agent for Competitive Racing in Gran Turismo 720252
  13. 28Drive Fast, Learn Faster: On-Board RL for High Performance Autonomous Racing20252
  14. 29ReconDreamer-RL: Enhancing Reinforcement Learning via Diffusion-based Scene Reconstruction20252
  15. 30A Comprehensive Review of Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving in the CARLA Simulator20252
  16. 31Reward-Driven Automated Curriculum Learning for Interaction-Aware Self-Driving at Unsignalized Intersections20242
  17. 32Reinforcement Learning for Online Testing of Autonomous Driving Systems: a Replication and Extension Study20242
  18. 33Deep Reinforcement Learning in Autonomous Car Path Planning and Control: A Survey20242
  19. 34CARL: Congestion-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Imitation-based Perturbations in Mixed Traffic Control20242
  20. 35WROOM: An Autonomous Driving Approach for Off-Road Navigation20242