Processing of logical-physical rules in the control of the autonomous vehicle

Recent advances in intelligent vehicles imply more sophisticated control laws. The standard concept of objective function and models of vehicle and driver represented by differential equations, are not anymore sufficient tools in a future scenario. The capability of reasoning of the machines imposes the use of logic as a fundamental tool to describe requirements of the behavior of the vehicle, and to characterize their response. However, logical statements exhibit a difficulty of integration with the differential physic laws to which the vehicle obeys. There is a clear heterogeneity between mathematics and logic, especially when they must fuse into a single model. The paper proposes an integrated model in which the physics and the logic fuse into a common model, able to generate a meaningful objective function to optimize the behavior through a physical-logic model of the vehicle in the context of control of hybrid dynamical systems. Not negligibly, a logic-statement design helps the autonomous driving to be more acceptable and comprehensible in an insurance and court law context.