VLM-MPC: Vision Language Foundation Model (VLM)-Guided Model Predictive Controller (MPC) for Autonomous Driving

Motivated by the emergent reasoning capabilities of Vision Language Models (VLMs) and its potential to improve the comprehensibility of autonomous driving systems, this paper introduces a closed-loop autonomous driving controller called VLM-MPC, which combines a VLM for high-level decision-making and a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) for low-level vehicle control. The proposed VLM-MPC system is structurally divided into two asynchronous components: an upper-level VLM and a lower-level MPC. The upper layer VLM generates driving parameters for lower-level control based on front camera images, ego vehicle state, traffic environment conditions, and reference memory. The lower-level MPC controls the vehicle in real-time using these parameters, considering engine lag and providing state feedback to the entire system. Experiments based on the nuScenes dataset validated the effectiveness of the proposed VLM-MPC system across various scenarios (e.g., night, rain, intersections). Results showed that the VLM-MPC system consistently outperformed baseline models in terms of safety and driving comfort. By comparing behaviors under different weather conditions and scenarios, we demonstrated the VLM's ability to understand the environment and make reasonable inferences.