English

VLADriver-RAG: Retrieval-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Models for Autonomous Driving

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2026-05-13 v2 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have emerged as a promising paradigm for end-to-end autonomous driving, yet their reliance on implicit parametric knowledge limits generalization in long-tail scenarios. While Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) offers a solution by accessing external expert priors, standard visual retrieval suffers from high latency and semantic ambiguity. To address these challenges, we propose \textbf{VLADriver-RAG}, a framework that grounds planning in explicit, structure-aware historical knowledge. Specifically, we abstract sensory inputs into spatiotemporal semantic graphs via a \textit{Visual-to-Scenario} mechanism, effectively filtering visual noise. To ensure retrieval relevance, we employ a \textit{Scenario-Aligned Embedding Model} that utilizes Graph-DTW metric alignment to prioritize intrinsic topological consistency over superficial visual similarity. These retrieved priors are then fused within a query-based VLA backbone to synthesize precise, disentangled trajectories. Extensive experiments on the Bench2Drive benchmark establish a new state-of-the-art, achieving a Driving Score of 89.12.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.08133,
  title  = {VLADriver-RAG: Retrieval-Augmented Vision-Language-Action Models for Autonomous Driving},
  author = {Rui Zhao and Haofeng Hu and Zhenhai Gao and Jiaqiao Liu and Gao Fei},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.08133},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:58:24.758Z