mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

The Waymo Open Sim Agents Challenge

arXiv 2305.12032 ↗First posted 19 May 2023cs.CV cs.LG cs.MAcited by 86

Not on the map. Why?

Cited by 31 in End-to-end autonomous driving, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

Simulation with realistic, interactive agents represents a key task for autonomous vehicle software development. In this work, we introduce the Waymo Open Sim Agents Challenge (WOSAC). WOSAC is the first public challenge to tackle this task and propose corresponding metrics. The goal of the challenge is to stimulate the design of realistic simulators that can be used to evaluate and train a behavior model for autonomous driving. We outline our evaluation methodology, present results for a number of different baseline simulation agent methods, and analyze several submissions to the 2023 competition which ran from March 16, 2023 to May 23, 2023. The WOSAC evaluation server remains open for submissions and we discuss open problems for the task.

Key facts. Cited by 86 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 59 of its 84 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 May 2023.

Builds on

59 of 84 references.

References · 59

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  3. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  4. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
  5. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,585
  6. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,355
  7. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 6,013
  8. 2019nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous drivingcited by 4,523
  9. 2021Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4,288
  10. 2019Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGANcited by 3,588
  11. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,253
  12. 2016Improved Techniques for Training GANscited by 2,970
38 more
  1. 2019Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Datasetcited by 2,451
  2. 2017CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulatorcited by 2,449
  3. 2022Scaling Autoregressive Models for Content-Rich Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,295
  4. 2019Argoverse: 3D Tracking and Forecasting with Rich Mapscited by 732
  5. 2022Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesiscited by 724
  6. 2023Argoverse 2: Next Generation Datasets for Self-Driving Perception and Forecastingcited by 707
  7. 2021Large Scale Interactive Motion Forecasting for Autonomous Driving : The Waymo Open Motion Datasetcited by 537
  8. 2016f-GAN: Training Generative Neural Samplers using Variational Divergence Minimizationcited by 506
  9. 2021NuPlan: A closed-loop ML-based planning benchmark for autonomous vehiclescited by 493
  10. 2017End-to-end Driving via Conditional Imitation Learningcited by 485
  11. 2018ChauffeurNet: Learning to Drive by Imitating the Best and Synthesizing the Worstcited by 397
  12. 2019Learning by Cheatingcited by 383
  13. 2021MetaDrive: Composing Diverse Driving Scenarios for Generalizable Reinforcement Learningcited by 290
  14. 2022Wayformer: Motion Forecasting via Simple & Efficient Attention Networkscited by 280
  15. 2022Motion Transformer with Global Intention Localization and Local Movement Refinementcited by 270
  16. 2021MultiPath++: Efficient Information Fusion and Trajectory Aggregation for Behavior Predictioncited by 246
  17. 2019INTERACTION Dataset: An INTERnational, Adversarial and Cooperative moTION Dataset in Interactive Driving Scenarios with Semantic Mapscited by 231
  18. 2018Convolutional Social Pooling for Vehicle Trajectory Predictioncited by 221
  19. 2021TrafficSim: Learning to Simulate Realistic Multi-Agent Behaviorscited by 193
  20. 2022Guided Conditional Diffusion for Controllable Traffic Simulationcited by 190
  21. 2019PRECOG: PREdiction Conditioned On Goals in Visual Multi-Agent Settingscited by 179
  22. 2019Multiple Futures Predictioncited by 178
  23. 2021Generating Useful Accident-Prone Driving Scenarios via a Learned Traffic Priorcited by 139
  24. 2020LiDARsim: Realistic LiDAR Simulation by Leveraging the Real Worldcited by 137
  25. 2021AdvSim: Generating Safety-Critical Scenarios for Self-Driving Vehiclescited by 137
  26. 2022Imitation Is Not Enough: Robustifying Imitation with Reinforcement Learning for Challenging Driving Scenarioscited by 129
  27. 2020Implicit Latent Variable Model for Scene-Consistent Motion Forecastingcited by 116
  28. 2021Learning to drive from a world on railscited by 114
  29. 2022TrafficGen: Learning to Generate Diverse and Realistic Traffic Scenarioscited by 106
  30. 2019Spatially-Aware Graph Neural Networks for Relational Behavior Forecasting from Sensor Datacited by 104
  31. 2021SceneGen: Learning to Generate Realistic Traffic Scenescited by 84
  32. 2022BITS: Bi-level Imitation for Traffic Simulationcited by 80
  33. 2021SimNet: Learning Reactive Self-driving Simulations from Real-world Observationscited by 77
  34. 2021GeoSim: Realistic Video Simulation via Geometry-Aware Composition for Self-Drivingcited by 75
  35. 2020A Survey of Algorithms for Black-Box Safety Validation of Cyber-Physical Systemscited by 71
  36. 2020SurfelGAN: Synthesizing Realistic Sensor Data for Autonomous Drivingcited by 68
  37. 2022Symphony: Learning Realistic and Diverse Agents for Autonomous Driving Simulationcited by 61
  38. 2022Nocturne: a scalable driving benchmark for bringing multi-agent learning one step closer to the real worldcited by 56

50 most cited of 59 All 59 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 6; 2024: 21; 2025: 33; 2026: 26.

86 papers.

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  1. 2023A Survey on Multimodal Large Language Models for Autonomous Drivingcited by 290
  2. 2025Robust Autonomy Emerges from Self-Playcited by 67
  3. 2024BehaviorGPT: Smart Agent Simulation for Autonomous Driving with Next-Patch Predictioncited by 50
  4. 2024SceneDiffuser: Efficient and Controllable Driving Simulation Initialization and Rolloutcited by 48
  5. 2024Solving Motion Planning Tasks with a Scalable Generative Modelcited by 40
  6. 2023SAFE-SIM: Safety-Critical Closed-Loop Traffic Simulation with Diffusion-Controllable Adversariescited by 38
  7. 2024WcDT: World-centric Diffusion Transformer for Traffic Scene Generationcited by 32
  8. 2024Improving Agent Behaviors with RL Fine-tuning for Autonomous Drivingcited by 27
  9. 2023Multiverse Transformer: 1st Place Solution for Waymo Open Sim Agents Challenge 2023cited by 25
  10. 2024SMART: Scalable Multi-agent Real-time Motion Generation via Next-token Predictioncited by 25
  11. 2023SceneDM: Scene-level Multi-agent Trajectory Generation with Consistent Diffusion Modelscited by 24
  12. 2025Building reliable sim driving agents by scaling self-playcited by 21
38 more
  1. 2024Promptable Closed-loop Traffic Simulationcited by 20
  2. 2025SceneDiffuser++: City-Scale Traffic Simulation via a Generative World Modelcited by 20
  3. 2024Human-compatible driving partners through data-regularized self-play reinforcement learningcited by 17
  4. 2025Advancing Multi-agent Traffic Simulation via R1-Style Reinforcement Fine-Tuningcited by 14
  5. 2024TrafficBots V1.5: Traffic Simulation via Conditional VAEs and Transformers with Relative Pose Encodingcited by 13
  6. 2025UniMM: A Unified Mixture Model Framework for Multi-Agent Simulationcited by 13
  7. 2024Planning with Adaptive World Models for Autonomous Drivingcited by 11
  8. 2024Learning to Drive via Asymmetric Self-Playcited by 11
  9. 2025LANGTRAJ: Diffusion Model and Dataset for Language-Conditioned Trajectory Simulationcited by 11
  10. 2024UniGen: Unified Modeling of Initial Agent States and Trajectories for Generating Autonomous Driving Scenarioscited by 10
  11. 2024SEAL: Towards Safe Autonomous Driving via Skill-Enabled Adversary Learning for Closed-Loop Scenario Generationcited by 10
  12. 2025RealEngine: Simulating Autonomous Driving in Realistic Contextcited by 10
  13. 2025Enhancing Autonomous Driving Safety with Collision Scenario Integrationcited by 9
  14. 2025SceneCrafter: Controllable Multi-View Driving Scene Editingcited by 9
  15. 2025TrajTok: Technical Report for 2025 Waymo Open Sim Agents Challengecited by 8
  16. 2026World Engine: Towards the Era of Post-Training for Autonomous Drivingcited by 8
  17. 2025DONUT: A Decoder-Only Model for Trajectory Predictioncited by 7
  18. 2025When Planners Meet Reality: How Learned, Reactive Traffic Agents Shift nuPlan Benchmarkscited by 7
  19. 2025SPACeR: Self-Play Anchoring with Centralized Reference Modelscited by 7
  20. 2026Learning to Drive in New Cities Without Human Demonstrationscited by 7
  21. 2023The 2nd Place Solution for 2023 Waymo Open Sim Agents Challengecited by 6
  22. 2025Direct Post-Training Preference Alignment for Multi-Agent Motion Generation Models Using Implicit Feedback from Pre-training Demonstrationscited by 6
  23. 2025TeraSim-World: Worldwide Safety-Critical Data Synthesis for End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 6
  24. 2025RoaD: Rollouts as Demonstrations for Closed-Loop Supervised Fine-Tuning of Autonomous Driving Policiescited by 6
  25. 2025Simulating the Unseen: Crash Prediction Must Learn from What Did Not Happencited by 5
  26. 2025DecompGAIL: Learning Realistic Traffic Behaviors with Decomposed Multi-Agent Generative Adversarial Imitation Learningcited by 5
  27. 2026Beyond Self-Play and Scale: A Behavior Benchmark for Generalization in Autonomous Drivingcited by 5
  28. 2025RIFT: Group-Relative RL Fine-Tuning for Realistic and Controllable Traffic Simulationcited by 4
  29. 2025Do LLM Modules Generalize? A Study on Motion Generation for Autonomous Drivingcited by 4
  30. 2025Drive&Gen: Co-Evaluating End-to-End Driving and Video Generation Modelscited by 4
  31. 2026Human-like autonomy emerges from self-play and a pinch of human datacited by 4
  32. 2024DragTraffic: Interactive and Controllable Traffic Scene Generation for Autonomous Drivingcited by 3
  33. 2024Adversarial and Reactive Traffic Entities for Behavior-Realistic Driving Simulation: A Reviewcited by 3
  34. 2024IGDrivSim: A Benchmark for the Imitation Gap in Autonomous Drivingcited by 3
  35. 2024Rate-Informed Discovery via Bayesian Adaptive Multifidelity Samplingcited by 3
  36. 2025V-Max: A Reinforcement Learning Framework for Autonomous Drivingcited by 3
  37. 2025Controllable Motion Generation via Diffusion Modal Couplingcited by 2
  38. 2025Long-term Traffic Simulation with Interleaved Autoregressive Motion and Scenario Generationcited by 2

50 most cited of 86 All 86 (JSON)