AgentThink: A Unified Framework for Tool-Augmented Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Vision-Language Models for Autonomous DrivingKangan Qian, Sicong Jiang, Yang Zhong et al. · tsinghua
Vision-Language Models (VLMs) show promise for autonomous driving, yet their struggle with hallucinations, inefficient reasoning, and limited real-world validation hinders accurate perception and robust step-by-step reasoning. To overcome this, we introduce \textbf{AgentThink}, a pioneering unified framework that integrates Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning with dynamic, agent-style tool invocation for autonomous driving tasks. AgentThink's core innovations include: \textbf{(i) Structured Data Generation}, which establishes an autonomous driving tool library to automatically construct structured, self-verified reasoning data explicitly incorporating tool usage for diverse driving scenarios; \textbf{(ii) A Two-stage Training Pipeline}, employing Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) with Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to equip VLMs with the capability for autonomous tool invocation; and \textbf{(iii) Agent-style Tool-Usage Evaluation}, introducing a novel multi-tool assessment protocol to rigorously evaluate the model's tool invocation and utilization. Experiments on the DriveLMM-o1 benchmark demonstrate that AgentThink significantly boosts overall reasoning scores by \textbf{53.91%} and enhances answer accuracy by \textbf{33.54%}, while markedly improving reasoning quality and consistency. Furthermore, ablation studies and robust zero-shot/few-shot generalization experiments across various benchmarks underscore its powerful capabilities. These findings highlight a promising trajectory for developing trustworthy and tool-aware autonomous driving models. Code is available at https://github.com/curryqka/AgentThink.
16.4ROMar 11, 2025
FASIONAD++ : Integrating High-Level Instruction and Information Bottleneck in FAt-Slow fusION Systems for Enhanced Safety in Autonomous Driving with Adaptive FeedbackKangan Qian, Ziang Luo, Sicong Jiang et al. · tsinghua
Ensuring safe, comfortable, and efficient planning is crucial for autonomous driving systems. While end-to-end models trained on large datasets perform well in standard driving scenarios, they struggle with complex low-frequency events. Recent Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision Language Models (VLMs) advancements offer enhanced reasoning but suffer from computational inefficiency. Inspired by the dual-process cognitive model "Thinking, Fast and Slow", we propose $\textbf{FASIONAD}$ -- a novel dual-system framework that synergizes a fast end-to-end planner with a VLM-based reasoning module. The fast system leverages end-to-end learning to achieve real-time trajectory generation in common scenarios, while the slow system activates through uncertainty estimation to perform contextual analysis and complex scenario resolution. Our architecture introduces three key innovations: (1) A dynamic switching mechanism enabling slow system intervention based on real-time uncertainty assessment; (2) An information bottleneck with high-level plan feedback that optimizes the slow system's guidance capability; (3) A bidirectional knowledge exchange where visual prompts enhance the slow system's reasoning while its feedback refines the fast planner's decision-making. To strengthen VLM reasoning, we develop a question-answering mechanism coupled with reward-instruct training strategy. In open-loop experiments, FASIONAD achieves a $6.7\%$ reduction in average $L2$ trajectory error and $28.1\%$ lower collision rate.