# LLM-Driven Scenario-Aware Planning for Autonomous Driving

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.21876 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21876/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Large language models for driving, one of 9 directions in End-to-end autonomous driving.
- Builds on 12 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Jan 2026.

## Placed in

- End-to-end autonomous driving / [Large language models for driving](https://mlsanity.com/driving/large-language-models-for-driving/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [Convex optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01946/) (2021)
- [CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03938/) (2017)
- [CVXPY: A Python-Embedded Modeling Language for Convex Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.00943/) (2016)
- [Optimization-Based Collision Avoidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03449/) (2017)
- [Multilayer Graph-Based Trajectory Planning for Race Vehicles in Dynamic Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08664/) (2020)
- [Model- and Acceleration-based Pursuit Controller for High-Performance Autonomous Racing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.04346/) (2022)
- [RDA: An Accelerated Collision Free Motion Planner for Autonomous Navigation in Cluttered Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00192/) (2022)
- [A Generalized Continuous Collision Detection Framework of Polynomial Trajectory for Mobile Robots in Cluttered Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13175/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Hybrid planner switching framework (HPSF) for autonomous driving needs to reconcile high-speed driving efficiency with safe maneuvering in dense traffic. Existing HPSF methods often fail to make reliable mode transitions or sustain efficient driving in congested environments, owing to heuristic scene recognition and low-frequency control updates. To address the limitation, this paper proposes LAP, a large language model (LLM) driven, adaptive planning method, which switches between high-speed driving in low-complexity scenes and precise driving in high-complexity scenes, enabling high qualities of trajectory generation through confined gaps. This is achieved by leveraging LLM for scene understanding and integrating its inference into the joint optimization of mode configuration and motion planning. The joint optimization is solved using tree-search model predictive control and alternating minimization. We implement LAP by Python in Robot Operating System (ROS). High-fidelity simulation results show that the proposed LAP outperforms other benchmarks in terms of both driving time and success rate.