Vehicle route-sequence planning using temporal logic

Abstract

This paper proposes a new logical framework for vehicle route-sequence planning of passenger travel requests. Each request is a fetch-and-send service task associated with two request-locations, namely, a source and a destination. The proposed framework is developed using propositional linear time temporal logic of Manna and Pnueli. The novelty lies in the use of the formal language for both the specification and theorem-proving analysis of precedence constraints among the location visits that are inherent in route sequences. In the framework, legal route sequences—each of which visits every request location once and only once in the precedence order of fetch-and-send associated with every such request—is formalized and justified, forming a basis upon which the link between a basic precedence constraint and the corresponding canonical forbidden-state formula is formally established. Over a given base route plan, a simple procedure to generate a feasible subplan based on a specification of the forbidden-state canonical form is also given. An example demonstrates how temporal logic analysis and the proposed procedure can be applied to select a final (feasible) subplan based on additional precedence constraints.