# Uncertainty-Aware DRL for Autonomous Vehicle Crowd Navigation in Shared Space

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.13969 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13969/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reinforcement learning for driving, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving.
- Builds on 18 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 May 2024.

## Placed in

- End-to-end autonomous driving / [Reinforcement learning for driving](https://mlsanity.com/driving/reinforcement-learning-for-driving/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [Crowd-Robot Interaction: Crowd-aware Robot Navigation with Attention-based Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.08835/) (2018)
- [Socially Aware Motion Planning with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08862/) (2017)
- [Decentralized Non-communicating Multiagent Collision Avoidance with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.07845/) (2016)
- [Motion Planning Among Dynamic, Decision-Making Agents with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.01956/) (2018)
- [Core Challenges of Social Robot Navigation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05668/) (2021)
- [Intention Aware Robot Crowd Navigation with Attention-Based Interaction Graph](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01821/) (2022)
- [Model-Agnostic Multi-Agent Perception Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13168/) (2022)
- [Relational Graph Learning for Crowd Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13165/) (2019)
- [Decentralized Structural-RNN for Robot Crowd Navigation with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04820/) (2020)
- [DRL-VO: Learning to Navigate Through Crowded Dynamic Scenes Using Velocity Obstacles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.06512/) (2023)
- [DenseCAvoid: Real-time Navigation in Dense Crowds using Anticipatory Behaviors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.03038/) (2020)
- [Propagating State Uncertainty Through Trajectory Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03267/) (2021)
- [Socially Aware Crowd Navigation with Multimodal Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction for Autonomous Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11191/) (2020)
- [Stochastic Model Predictive Control with a Safety Guarantee for Automated Driving: Extended Version](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09381/) (2020)
- [Move Beyond Trajectories: Distribution Space Coupling for Crowd Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13667/) (2021)
- [Interaction-Aware Motion Planning for Autonomous Vehicles with Multi-Modal Obstacle Uncertainty Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.11819/) (2022)
- [Social Robot Navigation through Constrained Optimization: a Comparative Study of Uncertainty-based Objectives and Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02859/) (2023)
- [Polar Collision Grids: Effective Interaction Modelling for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction in Shared Space Using Collision Checks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06654/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [SoNIC: Safe Social Navigation with Adaptive Conformal Inference and Constrained Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17460/) (2024)
- [Towards Generalizable Safety in Crowd Navigation via Conformal Uncertainty Handling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05634/) (2025)
- [Disentangling Uncertainty for Safe Social Navigation using Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.10655/) (2024)
- [A Digital Twin Framework for Reinforcement Learning with Real-Time Self-Improvement via Human Assistive Teleoperation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00732/) (2024)
- [Free Energy-Inspired Cognitive Risk Integration for AV Navigation in Pedestrian-Rich Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20850/) (2025)
- [Orchestrate, Generate, Reflect: A VLM-Based Multi-Agent Collaboration Framework for Automated Driving Policy Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.17042/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Safe, socially compliant, and efficient navigation of low-speed autonomous vehicles (AVs) in pedestrian-rich environments necessitates considering pedestrians' future positions and interactions with the vehicle and others. Despite the inevitable uncertainties associated with pedestrians' predicted trajectories due to their unobserved states (e.g., intent), existing deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms for crowd navigation often neglect these uncertainties when using predicted trajectories to guide policy learning. This omission limits the usability of predictions when diverging from ground truth. This work introduces an integrated prediction and planning approach that incorporates the uncertainties of predicted pedestrian states in the training of a model-free DRL algorithm. A novel reward function encourages the AV to respect pedestrians' personal space, decrease speed during close approaches, and minimize the collision probability with their predicted paths. Unlike previous DRL methods, our model, designed for AV operation in crowded spaces, is trained in a novel simulation environment that reflects realistic pedestrian behaviour in a shared space with vehicles. Results show a 40% decrease in collision rate and a 15% increase in minimum distance to pedestrians compared to the state of the art model that does not account for prediction uncertainty. Additionally, the approach outperforms model predictive control methods that incorporate the same prediction uncertainties in terms of both performance and computational time, while producing trajectories closer to human drivers in similar scenarios.