# Target-point Attention Transformer: A novel trajectory predict network for end-to-end autonomous driving

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01496 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01496/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in End-to-end system architecture, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving.
- Builds on 40 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Aug 2023.

## Placed in

- End-to-end autonomous driving / [End-to-end system architecture](https://mlsanity.com/driving/end-to-end-system-architecture/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [Learning Phrase Representations using RNN Encoder-Decoder for Statistical Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.1078/) (2014)
- [XLNet: Generalized Autoregressive Pretraining for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08237/) (2019)
- [ALBERT: A Lite BERT for Self-supervised Learning of Language Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.11942/) (2019)
- [End to End Learning for Self-Driving Cars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.07316/) (2016)
- [PETR: Position Embedding Transformation for Multi-View 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05625/) (2022)
- [End-to-end Driving via Conditional Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.02410/) (2017)
- [TransFuser: Imitation with Transformer-Based Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15997/) (2022)
- [ChauffeurNet: Learning to Drive by Imitating the Best and Synthesizing the Worst](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03079/) (2018)
- [Multi-modal Transformer for Video Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.10639/) (2020)
- [Learning by Cheating](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.12294/) (2019)
- [Multi-Modal Fusion Transformer for End-to-End Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09224/) (2021)
- [Exploring the Limitations of Behavior Cloning for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08980/) (2019)
- [Recent Trends in Deep Learning Based Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02709/) (2017)
- [Trajectory-guided Control Prediction for End-to-end Autonomous Driving: A Simple yet Strong Baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08129/) (2022)
- [Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer Networks for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08514/) (2020)
- [Safety-Enhanced Autonomous Driving Using Interpretable Sensor Fusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14024/) (2022)
- [End-to-End Urban Driving by Imitating a Reinforcement Learning Coach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08265/) (2021)
- [Transformer Networks for Trajectory Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08111/) (2020)
- [Fast Convergence of DETR with Spatially Modulated Co-Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.07448/) (2021)
- [NEAT: Neural Attention Fields for End-to-End Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04456/) (2021)
- [Perceive, Predict, and Plan: Safe Motion Planning Through Interpretable Semantic Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.05930/) (2020)
- [End-to-End Model-Free Reinforcement Learning for Urban Driving using Implicit Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10868/) (2019)
- [End-to-end Learning of Driving Models from Large-scale Video Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01079/) (2016)
- [Can Autonomous Vehicles Identify, Recover From, and Adapt to Distribution Shifts?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.14911/) (2020)
- [Learning from All Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11934/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [SwapTransformer: highway overtaking tactical planner model via imitation learning on OSHA dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01425/) (2024)
- [Moving Forward with Video Saliency: A New Dataset and Benchmark where Motion Matters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03276/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In the field of autonomous driving, there have been many excellent perception models for object detection, semantic segmentation, and other tasks, but how can we effectively use the perception models for vehicle planning? Traditional autonomous vehicle trajectory prediction methods not only need to obey traffic rules to avoid collisions, but also need to follow the prescribed route to reach the destination. In this paper, we propose a Transformer-based trajectory prediction network for end-to-end autonomous driving without rules called Target-point Attention Transformer network (TAT). We use the attention mechanism to realize the interaction between the predicted trajectory and the perception features as well as target-points. We demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing conditional imitation learning and GRU-based methods, significantly reducing the occurrence of accidents and improving route completion. We evaluate our approach in complex closed loop driving scenarios in cities using the CARLA simulator and achieve state-of-the-art performance.