Reactive Symbolic Planning and Control in Dynamic Adversarial Environments

Satisfying both safety and reachability requirements in dynamic adversarial environments is very challenging, particularly when little or no information about the dynamics and intentions of the adversarial objects is available. Therefore, this article addresses the problem of path planning and control of autonomous vehicles in a dynamic adversarial reach–avoid scenario with two noncooperative vehicles and their competitive objectives: 1) “reaching a target and avoiding the other vehicle” for one of them, called attacker, and 2) “protecting the target and capturing the opponent vehicle” for the other one, called defender. In the proposed solution, first, a discrete version of the problem is formulated and solved using linear temporal logic, temporal games, and
$\mu$
-calculus to construct winning discrete strategies that guarantee safety and reachability. A comprehensive discussion on the existence, correctness, and complexity analysis of the solution is also provided. Finally, a novel correct-by-design hybrid controller is designed to generate smooth control signals that preserve the satisfaction of safety and reachability.