Context-Triggered Control

The problem of synthesizing controllers for different classes of dynamical systems with respect to temporal logic specifications has received considerable attention in the last decades, especially in the context of cyber-physical system (CPS) design. The goal of these methods is to allow for fully automated synthesis of feedback controllers, which enforce temporal logic constraints and hence, to allow for a much larger spectrum of specifications than classical feedback controller synthesis techniques. In order to achieve this goal, techniques from the formal methods and the control communities need to be combined.

Context-triggered control is a novel approach to such integrated control problems, which automatically computes a provably correct hybrid controller that seamlessly reacts to (high-layer) logical context switches and low-level uncertainties. In particular, we avoid classical brute-force time- and space-discretization for scalability. Instead, we present a novel two-layer strategy synthesis approach, where the controller generated in the lower layer provides invariant sets and basins of attraction, which are exploited at the upper logical layer in an abstract way. Thereby, our new methodology allows to leverage both the computing power of state space control techniques and the intelligence of finite game solving for complex specifications, in a scalable way.

Our most recent work explores this connection for multi-agent systems by combining dynamic contingency games at the lower level and omega-regular game son the higher level with applications to multi-robot reactive mission planning and autonomous driving.

Group Members Involved:

Former Group Members Involved:

External Collaborators:

  • Raphael Jungers (UC Louvain, Belgium)
  • Matteo Della Rossa (UC Louvain, Belgium)
  • Lucas Neves Egidio

Publications:

  • K. Schweppe and A.-K. Schmuck. Context-Triggered Contingency Games for Strategic Multi-Agent Interaction. 2026. ICRA’26.  (preprint, video)
  • A. Nejati, S. P. Nayak and A.-K. Schmuck. Context-triggered Games for Reactive Synthesis over Stochastic Systems via Control Barrier Certificates. 2024. HSCC’24 (PDF)
  • S. P. Nayak, L. N. Egidio, M. Della Rossa, A.-K. Schmuck, R. M. Jungers. Context-Triggered Abstraction-Based Control Design. 2023. IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems. (PDF, HSCC poster)