Declarative Scenario-based Testing with RoadLogic

2026-03-10

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitations of current scenario-based autonomous driving testing, which often relies on imperative definitions that struggle to efficiently generate comprehensive and specification-compliant simulation scenarios. The authors propose RoadLogic, a novel approach that, for the first time, enables automatic instantiation of executable simulations directly from declarative OpenSCENARIO domain-specific language (DSL) specifications. By integrating Answer Set Programming for abstract reasoning and motion planning, RoadLogic generates feasible vehicle trajectories while ensuring correctness through formal specification monitoring. Implemented within the CommonRoad framework, RoadLogic automatically produces diverse, realistic, and specification-conforming simulation trajectories for multiple OpenSCENARIO 2 (OS2) scenario types within minutes, significantly enhancing both the systematic coverage and behavioral diversity of autonomous driving testing.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Model-Based Reasoning
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Logic Programming
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

Scenario-based testing is a key method for cost-effective and safe validation of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Existing approaches rely on imperative scenario definitions, requiring developers to manually enumerate numerous variants to achieve coverage. Declarative languages, such as OpenSCENARIO DSL (OS2), raise the abstraction level but lack systematic methods for instantiating concrete, specification-compliant scenarios as simulations. To our knowledge, currently, no open-source solution provides this capability. We present RoadLogic that bridges declarative OS2 specifications and executable simulations. It uses Answer Set Programming to generate abstract plans satisfying scenario constraints, motion planning to refine the plans into feasible trajectories, and specification-based monitoring to verify correctness. We evaluate RoadLogic on instantiating representative OS2 scenarios as simulations in the CommonRoad framework. Results show that RoadLogic consistently produces realistic, specification-satisfying simulations within minutes and captures diverse behavioral variants through parameter sampling, thus opening the door to systematic scenario-based testing for autonomous driving systems.

Problem

• declarative scenario-based testing
• autonomous vehicles
• OpenSCENARIO
• scenario instantiation
• simulation validation

Innovation

• Declarative Scenario Specification
• Answer Set Programming
• Autonomous Vehicle Testing
• OpenSCENARIO
• Simulation Instantiation