VLM as Strategist: Adaptive Generation of Safety-critical Testing Scenarios via Guided Diffusion

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wu, Xinzheng, Chen, Junyi, Zhong, Naiting, Shen, Yong
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Wu, Xinzheng
Chen, Junyi
Zhong, Naiting
Shen, Yong
author_facet Wu, Xinzheng
Chen, Junyi
Zhong, Naiting
Shen, Yong
contents The safe deployment of autonomous driving systems (ADSs) relies on comprehensive testing and evaluation. However, safety-critical scenarios that can effectively expose system vulnerabilities are extremely sparse in the real world. Existing scenario generation methods face challenges in efficiently constructing long-tail scenarios that ensure fidelity, criticality, and interactivity, while particularly lacking real-time dynamic response capabilities to the vehicle under test (VUT). To address these challenges, this paper proposes a safety-critical testing scenario generation framework that integrates the high-level semantic understanding capabilities of Vision Language Models (VLMs) with the fine-grained generation capabilities of adaptive guided diffusion models. The framework establishes a three-layer hierarchical architecture comprising a strategic layer for VLM-directed scenario generation objective determination, a tactical layer for guidance function formulation, and an operational layer for guided diffusion execution. We first establish a high-quality fundamental diffusion model that learns the data distribution of real driving scenarios. Next, we design an adaptive guided diffusion method that enables real-time, precise control of background vehicles (BVs) in closed-loop simulation. The VLM is then incorporated to autonomously generate scenario generation objectives and guidance functions through deep scenario understanding and risk reasoning, ultimately guiding the diffusion model to achieve VLM-directed scenario generation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently generate realistic, diverse, and highly interactive safety-critical testing scenarios. Furthermore, case studies validate the adaptability and VLM-directed generation performance of the proposed method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_02844
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle VLM as Strategist: Adaptive Generation of Safety-critical Testing Scenarios via Guided Diffusion
Wu, Xinzheng
Chen, Junyi
Zhong, Naiting
Shen, Yong
Robotics
Machine Learning
The safe deployment of autonomous driving systems (ADSs) relies on comprehensive testing and evaluation. However, safety-critical scenarios that can effectively expose system vulnerabilities are extremely sparse in the real world. Existing scenario generation methods face challenges in efficiently constructing long-tail scenarios that ensure fidelity, criticality, and interactivity, while particularly lacking real-time dynamic response capabilities to the vehicle under test (VUT). To address these challenges, this paper proposes a safety-critical testing scenario generation framework that integrates the high-level semantic understanding capabilities of Vision Language Models (VLMs) with the fine-grained generation capabilities of adaptive guided diffusion models. The framework establishes a three-layer hierarchical architecture comprising a strategic layer for VLM-directed scenario generation objective determination, a tactical layer for guidance function formulation, and an operational layer for guided diffusion execution. We first establish a high-quality fundamental diffusion model that learns the data distribution of real driving scenarios. Next, we design an adaptive guided diffusion method that enables real-time, precise control of background vehicles (BVs) in closed-loop simulation. The VLM is then incorporated to autonomously generate scenario generation objectives and guidance functions through deep scenario understanding and risk reasoning, ultimately guiding the diffusion model to achieve VLM-directed scenario generation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently generate realistic, diverse, and highly interactive safety-critical testing scenarios. Furthermore, case studies validate the adaptability and VLM-directed generation performance of the proposed method.
title VLM as Strategist: Adaptive Generation of Safety-critical Testing Scenarios via Guided Diffusion
topic Robotics
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02844