Risk-Aware Motion Planning with Learned Trajectory Primitives and Probabilistic Safety Assessment

Abstract

This paper presents a radial basis function network (RBFN)-informed motion planning framework for safe and efficient urban autonomous driving. The proposed approach combines RBFN-based candidate trajectory generation with an analytic collision probability assessment and optimization-based trajectory refinement. The network learns jerk-minimal trajectories, enabling the MPC to operate within a reduced and dynamically consistent search space. Candidate motion primitives are selected based on an accurate probabilistic risk measure. This design decreases solver complexity while preserving safety and constraint satisfaction. The framework is evaluated in numerous urban driving scenarios. Results demonstrate improved risk awareness and fewer vehicle-limit violations compared to benchmark methods. The proposed approach integrates learning-based trajectories into optimization-based motion planning, thereby ensuring safety and interpretability.