Knowledge Distillation-Enhanced Behavior Transformer for Decision-Making of Autonomous Driving

Abstract

Autonomous driving has demonstrated impressive driving capabilities, with behavior decision-making playing a crucial role as a bridge between perception and control. Imitation Learning (IL) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) have introduced innovative approaches to behavior decision-making in autonomous driving, but challenges remain. On one hand, RL’s policy networks often lack sufficient reasoning ability to make optimal decisions in highly complex and stochastic environments. On the other hand, the complexity of these environments leads to low sample efficiency in RL, making it difficult to efficiently learn driving policies. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative Knowledge Distillation-Enhanced Behavior Transformer (KD-BeT) framework. Building on the successful application of Transformers in large language models, we introduce the Behavior Transformer as the policy network in RL, using observation–action history as input for sequential decision-making, thereby leveraging the Transformer’s contextual reasoning capabilities. Using a teacher–student paradigm, we first train a small-capacity teacher model quickly and accurately through IL, then apply knowledge distillation to accelerate RL’s training efficiency and performance. Simulation results demonstrate that KD-BeT maintains fast convergence and high asymptotic performance during training. In the CARLA NoCrash benchmark tests, KD-BeT outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of traffic efficiency and driving safety, offering a novel solution for addressing real-world autonomous driving tasks.