mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DriveArena: A Closed-loop Generative Simulation Platform for Autonomous Driving

arXiv 2408.00415 ↗First posted 1 Aug 2024cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 98

On the map: End-to-end autonomous driving → Generative simulation for driving

Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presented DriveArena, the first high-fidelity closed-loop simulation system designed for driving agents navigating in real scenarios. DriveArena features a flexible, modular architecture, allowing for the seamless interchange of its core components: Traffic Manager, a traffic simulator capable of generating realistic traffic flow on any worldwide street map, and World Dreamer, a high-fidelity conditional generative model with infinite autoregression. This powerful synergy empowers any driving agent capable of processing real-world images to navigate in DriveArena's simulated environment. The agent perceives its surroundings through images generated by World Dreamer and output trajectories. These trajectories are fed into Traffic Manager, achieving realistic interactions with other vehicles and producing a new scene layout. Finally, the latest scene layout is relayed back into World Dreamer, perpetuating the simulation cycle. This iterative process fosters closed-loop exploration within a highly realistic environment, providing a valuable platform for developing and evaluating driving agents across diverse and challenging scenarios. DriveArena signifies a substantial leap forward in leveraging generative image data for the driving simulation platform, opening insights for closed-loop autonomous driving. Code will be available soon on GitHub: https://github.com/PJLab-ADG/DriveArena

Key facts. Cited by 98 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Generative simulation for driving, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving. Builds on 68 of its 83 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Aug 2024.

Builds on

68 of 83 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Vista: A Generalizable Driving World Model with High Fidelity and Versatile Controllability27 May
  2. 2024GenAD: Generalized Predictive Model for Autonomous Driving14 Mar
  3. 2024OASim: an Open and Adaptive Simulator based on Neural Rendering for Autonomous Driving6 Feb
  4. 2023MUVO: A Multimodal Generative World Model for Autonomous Driving with Geometric Representations20 Nov
  5. 2023GAIA-1: A Generative World Model for Autonomous Driving29 Sep
  6. 2023DriveDreamer: Towards Real-world-driven World Models for Autonomous Driving18 Sep

Other references · 62

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  3. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  4. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,539
  5. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,466
  6. 2019nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous drivingcited by 4,485
  7. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
  8. 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 3,595
  9. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,526
  10. 2019Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Datasetcited by 2,436
  11. 2017CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulatorcited by 2,431
  12. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Stepscited by 1,961
38 more
  1. 2021SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 1,903
  2. 2023AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuningcited by 1,418
  3. 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,339
  4. 2020Center-based 3D Object Detection and Trackingcited by 1,143
  5. 2022Planning-oriented Autonomous Drivingcited by 1,068
  6. 2016Playing for Data: Ground Truth from Computer Gamescited by 816
  7. 2023GLIGEN: Open-Set Grounded Text-to-Image Generationcited by 774
  8. 2023VAD: Vectorized Scene Representation for Efficient Autonomous Drivingcited by 613
  9. 2023DriveLM: Driving with Graph Visual Question Answeringcited by 527
  10. 2021NuPlan: A closed-loop ML-based planning benchmark for autonomous vehiclescited by 485
  11. 2022Latent Video Diffusion Models for High-Fidelity Long Video Generationcited by 385
  12. 2022ST-P3: End-to-end Vision-based Autonomous Driving via Spatial-Temporal Feature Learningcited by 365
  13. 2023Uni-ControlNet: All-in-One Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 358
  14. 2024NAVSIM: Data-Driven Non-Reactive Autonomous Vehicle Simulation and Benchmarkingcited by 343
  15. 2023UniSim: A Neural Closed-Loop Sensor Simulatorcited by 294
  16. 2021MetaDrive: Composing Diverse Driving Scenarios for Generalizable Reinforcement Learningcited by 281
  17. 2023MagicDrive: Street View Generation with Diverse 3D Geometry Controlcited by 250
  18. 2024Bench2Drive: Towards Multi-Ability Benchmarking of Closed-Loop End-To-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 250
  19. 2023Is Ego Status All You Need for Open-Loop End-to-End Autonomous Driving?cited by 242
  20. 2023DriveMLM: Aligning Multi-Modal Large Language Models with Behavioral Planning States for Autonomous Drivingcited by 233
  21. 2023DiLu: A Knowledge-Driven Approach to Autonomous Driving with Large Language Modelscited by 204
  22. 2023UniControl: A Unified Diffusion Model for Controllable Visual Generation In the Wildcited by 197
  23. 2023Rethinking the Open-Loop Evaluation of End-to-End Autonomous Driving in nuScenescited by 191
  24. 2023MARS: An Instance-aware, Modular and Realistic Simulator for Autonomous Drivingcited by 170
  25. 2023Panacea: Panoramic and Controllable Video Generation for Autonomous Drivingcited by 165
  26. 2023Drive Like a Human: Rethinking Autonomous Driving with Large Language Modelscited by 158
  27. 2023Waymax: An Accelerated, Data-Driven Simulator for Large-Scale Autonomous Driving Researchcited by 158
  28. 2022SHIFT: A Synthetic Driving Dataset for Continuous Multi-Task Domain Adaptationcited by 146
  29. 2023Street-View Image Generation from a Bird's-Eye View Layoutcited by 102
  30. 2023BEVControl: Accurately Controlling Street-view Elements with Multi-perspective Consistency via BEV Sketch Layoutcited by 102
  31. 2023LoGoNet: Towards Accurate 3D Object Detection with Local-to-Global Cross-Modal Fusioncited by 80
  32. 2023DrivingDiffusion: Layout-Guided multi-view driving scene video generation with latent diffusion modelcited by 75
  33. 2023FusionAD: Multi-modality Fusion for Prediction and Planning Tasks of Autonomous Drivingcited by 67
  34. 2023Camera-based 3D Semantic Scene Completion with Sparse Guidance Networkcited by 40
  35. 2024Continuously Learning, Adapting, and Improving: A Dual-Process Approach to Autonomous Drivingcited by 40
  36. 2021Semantic Segmentation-assisted Scene Completion for LiDAR Point Cloudscited by 37
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  38. 2024LimSim++: A Closed-Loop Platform for Deploying Multimodal LLMs in Autonomous Drivingcited by 32

50 most cited of 62 All 62 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 10; 2025: 48; 2026: 40.

98 papers.

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  1. 2025Pseudo-Simulation for Autonomous Drivingcited by 141
  2. 2024DriveDreamer4D: World Models Are Effective Data Machines for 4D Driving Scene Representationcited by 123
  3. 2024MagicDrive-V2: High-Resolution Long Video Generation for Autonomous Driving with Adaptive Controlcited by 90
  4. 2024ReconDreamer: Crafting World Models for Driving Scene Reconstruction via Online Restorationcited by 89
  5. 20253D and 4D World Modeling: A Surveycited by 64
  6. 2025A Survey of World Models for Autonomous Drivingcited by 60
  7. 2024InfiniCube: Unbounded and Controllable Dynamic 3D Driving Scene Generation with World-Guided Video Modelscited by 53
  8. 2025DiST-4D: Disentangled Spatiotemporal Diffusion with Metric Depth for 4D Driving Scene Generationcited by 39
  9. 2025Foundation Models in Autonomous Driving: A Survey on Scenario Generation and Scenario Analysiscited by 37
  10. 2024DreamForge: Motion-Aware Autoregressive Video Generation for Multi-View Driving Scenescited by 34
  11. 2024DrivingSphere: Building a High-fidelity 4D World for Closed-loop Simulationcited by 34
  12. 2025OmniNWM: Omniscient Driving Navigation World Modelscited by 32
38 more
  1. 2024The Dawn of Video Generation: Preliminary Explorations with SORA-like Modelscited by 30
  2. 2025The Role of World Models in Shaping Autonomous Driving: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 29
  3. 2025Scenario Dreamer: Vectorized Latent Diffusion for Generating Driving Simulation Environmentscited by 27
  4. 2026Latent-WAM: Latent World Action Modeling for End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 27
  5. 2025ImagiDrive: A Unified Imagination-and-Planning Framework for Autonomous Drivingcited by 24
  6. 2025X-Scene: Large-Scale Driving Scene Generation with High Fidelity and Flexible Controllabilitycited by 20
  7. 2025GeoDrive: 3D Geometry-Informed Driving World Model with Precise Action Controlcited by 19
  8. 2024Stag-1: Towards Realistic 4D Driving Simulation with Video Generation Modelcited by 18
  9. 2025BridgeDrive: Diffusion Bridge Policy for Closed-Loop Trajectory Planning in Autonomous Drivingcited by 17
  10. 2024Bench2Drive-R: Turning Real World Data into Reactive Closed-Loop Autonomous Driving Benchmark by Generative Modelcited by 14
  11. 2025LiDARCrafter: Dynamic 4D World Modeling from LiDAR Sequencescited by 14
  12. 2026NVIDIA OmniDreams: Real-Time Generative World Model for Closed-Loop Autonomous Vehicle Simulationcited by 14
  13. 2025AD-R1: Closed-Loop Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Autonomous Driving with Impartial World Modelscited by 13
  14. 2025Generating Multimodal Driving Scenes via Next-Scene Predictioncited by 12
  15. 2025Unraveling the Effects of Synthetic Data on End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 12
  16. 2024SEAL: Towards Safe Autonomous Driving via Skill-Enabled Adversary Learning for Closed-Loop Scenario Generationcited by 10
  17. 2025RealEngine: Simulating Autonomous Driving in Realistic Contextcited by 10
  18. 2025GenieDrive: Towards Physics-Aware Driving World Model with 4D Occupancy Guided Video Generationcited by 10
  19. 2025Para-Lane: Multi-Lane Dataset Registering Parallel Scans for Benchmarking Novel View Synthesiscited by 9
  20. 2025Learning-based 3D Reconstruction in Autonomous Driving: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 9
  21. 2026BridgeSim: Unveiling the OL-CL Gap in End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 9
  22. 2025RoCA: Robust Cross-Domain End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 8
  23. 20254D Driving Scene Generation With Stereo Forcingcited by 8
  24. 2025Generative AI for Autonomous Driving: Frontiers and Opportunitiescited by 7
  25. 2025World Model-Based End-to-End Scene Generation for Accident Anticipation in Autonomous Drivingcited by 7
  26. 2025Model-Based Policy Adaptation for Closed-Loop End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 7
  27. 2026ParkGaussian: Surround-view 3D Gaussian Splatting for Autonomous Parkingcited by 7
  28. 2025TeraSim-World: Worldwide Safety-Critical Data Synthesis for End-to-End Autonomous Drivingcited by 6
  29. 2025RLGF: Reinforcement Learning with Geometric Feedback for Autonomous Driving Video Generationcited by 5
  30. 2025DriveE2E: Closed-Loop Benchmark for End-to-End Autonomous Driving through Real-to-Simulationcited by 5
  31. 2026Video Generation Models as World Models: Efficient Paradigms, Architectures and Algorithmscited by 5
  32. 2026Is Your Driving World Model an All-Around Player?cited by 5
  33. 2025HCRMP: A LLM-Hinted Contextual Reinforcement Learning Framework for Autonomous Drivingcited by 4
  34. 2026Reasoning models do not yet follow their reasoning in autonomous driving: The KITScenes LongTail Datasetcited by 4
  35. 2026MDrive: Benchmarking Closed-Loop Cooperative Driving for End-to-End Multi-agent Systemscited by 4
  36. 2026CausalDrive: Real-time Causal World Models for Autonomous Drivingcited by 4
  37. 2026Scaling Self-Play for End-to-End Drivingcited by 4
  38. 2025Learning Through Retrospection: Improving Trajectory Prediction for Automated Driving with Error Feedbackcited by 3

50 most cited of 98 All 98 (JSON)

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  1. 2025SceneDiffuser++: City-Scale Traffic Simulation via a Generative World Model
  2. 2026DrivingGen: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Generative Video World Models in Autonomous Driving
  3. 2025GAIA-2: A Controllable Multi-View Generative World Model for Autonomous Driving
  4. 2026From Virtual Environments to Real-World Trials: Emerging Trends in Autonomous Driving
  5. 2025Drive&Gen: Co-Evaluating End-to-End Driving and Video Generation Models
  6. 2025DriveGen: Towards Infinite Diverse Traffic Scenarios with Large Models
  7. 2025DriVerse: Navigation World Model for Driving Simulation via Multimodal Trajectory Prompting and Motion Alignment
  8. 2026ZYT-World: A Real-Time Controllable World Model for Closed-Loop Autonomous-Driving Simulation