mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Social Coordination and Altruism in Autonomous Driving

arXiv 2107.00200 ↗First posted 1 Jul 2021cs.ROcited by 28

On the map: End-to-end autonomous driving → Cooperative and V2X driving

Abstract (arXiv)

Despite the advances in the autonomous driving domain, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are still inefficient and limited in terms of cooperating with each other or coordinating with vehicles operated by humans. A group of autonomous and human-driven vehicles (HVs) which work together to optimize an altruistic social utility -- as opposed to the egoistic individual utility -- can co-exist seamlessly and assure safety and efficiency on the road. Achieving this mission without explicit coordination among agents is challenging, mainly due to the difficulty of predicting the behavior of humans with heterogeneous preferences in mixed-autonomy environments. Formally, we model an AV's maneuver planning in mixed-autonomy traffic as a partially-observable stochastic game and attempt to derive optimal policies that lead to socially-desirable outcomes using a multi-agent reinforcement learning framework. We introduce a quantitative representation of the AVs' social preferences and design a distributed reward structure that induces altruism into their decision making process. Our altruistic AVs are able to form alliances, guide the traffic, and affect the behavior of the HVs to handle competitive driving scenarios. As a case study, we compare egoistic AVs to our altruistic autonomous agents in a highway merging setting and demonstrate the emerging behaviors that lead to a noticeable improvement in the number of successful merges as well as the overall traffic flow and safety.

Key facts. Cited by 28 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Cooperative and V2X driving, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving. Builds on 30 of its 56 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Jul 2021.

Builds on

30 of 56 references.

References · 30

  1. 2013Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 3,211
  2. 2017Multi-Agent Actor-Critic for Mixed Cooperative-Competitive Environmentscited by 1,519
  3. 2017Counterfactual Multi-Agent Policy Gradientscited by 733
  4. 2017Learning with Opponent-Learning Awarenesscited by 218
  5. 2017Deep Decentralized Multi-task Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning under Partial Observabilitycited by 143
  6. 2017Socially Aware Motion Planning with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 128
  7. 2017Stabilising Experience Replay for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 114
  8. 2017A Survey of Learning in Multiagent Environments: Dealing with Non-Stationaritycited by 93
  9. 2017Imitating Driver Behavior with Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 92
  10. 2020Learning Latent Representations to Influence Multi-Agent Interactioncited by 92
  11. 2019Multi-Agent Connected Autonomous Driving using Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 53
  12. 2017Multimodal Probabilistic Model-Based Planning for Human-Robot Interactioncited by 50
18 more
  1. 2014Efficient Model Learning for Human-Robot Collaborative Taskscited by 35
  2. 2021On the Critical Role of Conventions in Adaptive Human-AI Collaborationcited by 26
  3. 2020SEAN: Social Environment for Autonomous Navigationcited by 18
  4. 2019Controlling Steering Angle for Cooperative Self-driving Vehicles utilizing CNN and LSTM-based Deep Networkscited by 15
  5. 2019Learning How to Dynamically Route Autonomous Vehicles on Shared Roadscited by 12
  6. 2021Emergent Prosociality in Multi-Agent Games Through Giftingcited by 12
  7. 2019Approximate Robust Control of Uncertain Dynamical Systemscited by 9
  8. 2019Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Cellular V2X Communication in Dense Vehicular Networkscited by 8
  9. 2020A Maneuver-based Urban Driving Dataset and Model for Cooperative Vehicle Applicationscited by 8
  10. 2018Multiple Access in Cellular V2X: Performance Analysis in Highly Congested Vehicular Networkscited by 7
  11. 2018Altruistic Autonomy: Beating Congestion on Shared Roadscited by 7
  12. 2019Real-Time Hardware-In-the-Loop Emulation Framework for DSRC-based Connected Vehicle Applicationscited by 7
  13. 2019V2X System Architecture Utilizing Hybrid Gaussian Process-based Model Structurescited by 6
  14. 2020Feature Sharing and Integration for Cooperative Cognition and Perception with Volumetric Sensorscited by 5
  15. 2017A Stochastic Hybrid Framework for Driver Behavior Modeling Based on Hierarchical Dirichlet Processcited by 4
  16. 2018A Driver Behavior Modeling Structure Based on Non-parametric Bayesian Stochastic Hybrid Architecturecited by 4
  17. 2019Analysis of Distributed Congestion Control in Cellular Vehicle-to-everything Networkscited by 4
  18. 2020Performance Analysis of Cellular-V2X with Adaptive and Selective Power Controlcited by 4

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 3; 2022: 5; 2023: 9; 2024: 5; 2025: 3; 2026: 3.

28 papers.

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By area:

  1. 2024Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving: A Surveycited by 30
  2. 2023BAT: Behavior-Aware Human-Like Trajectory Prediction for Autonomous Drivingcited by 28
  3. 2022Robustness and Adaptability of Reinforcement Learning based Cooperative Autonomous Driving in Mixed-autonomy Trafficcited by 15
  4. 2023Active Uncertainty Reduction for Safe and Efficient Interaction Planning: A Shielding-Aware Dual Control Approachcited by 13
  5. 2023Towards Socially Responsive Autonomous Vehicles: A Reinforcement Learning Framework with Driving Priors and Coordination Awarenesscited by 12
  6. 2024MFTraj: Map-Free, Behavior-Driven Trajectory Prediction for Autonomous Drivingcited by 12
  7. 2021Altruistic Maneuver Planning for Cooperative Autonomous Vehicles Using Multi-agent Advantage Actor-Criticcited by 11
  8. 2022Prediction-aware and Reinforcement Learning based Altruistic Cooperative Drivingcited by 6
  9. 2021Towards Learning Generalizable Driving Policies from Restricted Latent Representationscited by 4
  10. 2023Intent-Aware Autonomous Driving: A Case Study on Highway Merging Scenarioscited by 2
  11. 2024Learning responsibility allocations for multi-agent interactions: A differentiable optimization approach with control barrier functionscited by 2
  12. 2021Active Altruism Learning and Information Sufficiency for Autonomous Drivingcited by 1
16 more
  1. 2022How Bad is Selfish Driving? Bounding the Inefficiency of Equilibria in Urban Driving Gamescited by 1
  2. 2022Learning-based social coordination to improve safety and robustness of cooperative autonomous vehicles in mixed trafficcited by 1
  3. 2023Learning in Cooperative Multiagent Systems Using Cognitive and Machine Modelscited by 1
  4. 2023A Two-stage Based Social Preference Recognition in Multi-Agent Autonomous Driving Systemcited by 1
  5. 2024Towards Safe and Robust Autonomous Vehicle Platooning: A Self-Organizing Cooperative Control Frameworkcited by 1
  6. 2026Learning Probabilistic Responsibility Allocations for Multi-Agent Interactionscited by 1
  7. 2022Context-Aware Target Classification with Hybrid Gaussian Process prediction for Cooperative Vehicle Safety systemscited by 0
  8. 2023Studying the Impact of Semi-Cooperative Drivers on Overall Highway Flowcited by 0
  9. 2023Zero-shot Transfer Learning of Driving Policy via Socially Adversarial Traffic Flowcited by 0
  10. 2023Human-Like Implicit Intention Expression for Autonomous Driving Motion Planning: A Method Based on Learning Human Intention Priorscited by 0
  11. 2024S4TP: Social-Suitable and Safety-Sensitive Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Vehiclescited by 0
  12. 2025Towards Developing Socially Compliant Automated Vehicles: Advances, Expert Insights, and A Conceptual Frameworkcited by 0
  13. 2025Toward Safety-First Human-Like Decision Making for Autonomous Vehicles in Time-Varying Traffic Flowcited by 0
  14. 2025Intrinsic-Motivation Multi-Robot Social Formation Navigation with Coordinated Explorationcited by 0
  15. 2026Personalized Autonomous Driving via Optimal Control with Clearance Constraints from Questionnairescited by 0
  16. 2026COIN: Collaborative Interaction-Aware Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Self-Driving Systemscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Impact of Collective Behaviors of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Traffic Dynamics: A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach
  2. 2022A Cooperative Optimal Control Framework for Connected and Automated Vehicles in Mixed Traffic Using Social Value Orientation
  3. 2025Autonomous vehicles need social awareness to find optima in multi-agent reinforcement learning routing games
  4. 2021Linear Differential Games for Cooperative Behavior Planning of Autonomous Vehicles Using Mixed-Integer Programming
  5. 2025Socially-Aware Autonomous Driving: Inferring Yielding Intentions for Safer Interactions
  6. 2025A Human-Oriented Cooperative Driving Approach: Integrating Driving Intention, State, and Conflict
  7. 2023Development and Assessment of Autonomous Vehicles in Both Fully Automated and Mixed Traffic Conditions
  8. 2023Bringing Diversity to Autonomous Vehicles: An Interpretable Multi-vehicle Decision-making and Planning Framework