GNN-Accelerated Mixed-Integer Dual MPC for Interactive Driving

In interactions with uncertain opponents, dual model predictive control (MPC) can improve performance through information-seeking actions that reduce uncertainty about opponents’ behavior. Its recent applications to autonomous driving, however, are limited to scenarios involving a single opponent on a single lane. This paper presents a mixed-integer dual MPC for multiple reactive opponents on multi-lane roads, jointly optimizing integer-valued maneuver decisions (lane changes and safe-region selections), and continuous motion over a scenario tree that samples plausible interactions with the opponents. As interaction complexity increases, solving the resulting mixed-integer nonlinear program becomes increasingly expensive. To reduce this computational burden, a graph neural network (GNN) predicts the optimal maneuver decisions, and high-confidence predictions are fixed before the reduced problem is solved. Simulations show that active probing behavior emerges in complex interactive scenarios, and that GNN guidance fixes $76.3\mathrm{\%}$ of the integer decisions and reduces the solve time by $2.5\times$ on average, with negligible degradation of optimality.