CauTraj: A Causal-Knowledge-Guided Framework for Lane-Changing Trajectory Planning of Autonomous Vehicles

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18703v1
• Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:44:32 GMT
• Title: CauTraj: A Causal-Knowledge-Guided Framework for Lane-Changing Trajectory Planning of Autonomous Vehicles
• Authors: Cailin Lei, Haiyang Wu, Yuxiong Ji, Xiaoyu Cai, Yuchuan Du,
• Abstract summary: Enhancing performance of trajectory planners for lane - changing vehicles is one of the key challenges in autonomous driving within human - machine mixed traffic.<n>Most existing studies have not incorporated human drivers' prior knowledge when designing trajectory planning models.<n>This study proposes a novel trajectory planning framework that integrates causal prior knowledge into the control process.
• Score: 15.499947452168891
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: Enhancing the performance of trajectory planners for lane - changing vehicles is one of the key challenges in autonomous driving within human - machine mixed traffic. Most existing studies have not incorporated human drivers' prior knowledge when designing trajectory planning models. To address this issue, this study proposes a novel trajectory planning framework that integrates causal prior knowledge into the control process. Both longitudinal and lateral microscopic behaviors of vehicles are modeled to quantify interaction risk, and a staged causal graph is constructed to capture causal dependencies in lane-changing scenarios. Causal effects between the lane-changing vehicle and surrounding vehicles are then estimated using causal inference, including average causal effects (ATE) and conditional average treatment effects (CATE). These causal priors are embedded into a model predictive control (MPC) framework to enhance trajectory planning. The proposed approach is validated on naturalistic vehicle trajectory datasets. Experimental results show that: (1) causal inference provides interpretable and stable quantification of vehicle interactions; (2) individual causal effects reveal driver heterogeneity; and (3) compared with the baseline MPC, the proposed method achieves a closer alignment with human driving behaviors, reducing maximum trajectory deviation from 1.2 m to 0.2 m, lateral velocity fluctuation by 60%, and yaw angle variability by 50%. These findings provide methodological support for human-like trajectory planning and practical value for improving safety, stability, and realism in autonomous vehicle testing and traffic simulation platforms.

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