Managing conflicting interactions between a movable device and potential obstacles

An apparatus for determining a risk of conflict between a movable device and potential obstacles, the apparatus comprising processing circuitry and a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by the processing circuitry, cause the apparatus to:

• divide a space into a plurality of positions, and, at each of a plurality of successive times:
• for each movable device of a plurality of movable devices:
• determine a conflict function for the movable device in a first position at a respective time, the first position having one or more neighbouring positions, the conflict function being determined based on whether or not an obstacle is present in any of the first position and the one or more neighbouring positions;
• and
• determine a respective risk value for at least one of the first position and the one or more neighbouring positions using the conflict function and a risk value associated with a second position, the movable device being planned to move from the first position to the second position at a subsequent time, the respective risk value being determined based at least in part on a learning parameter times a change in risk value between a risk value for the first position and the risk value for the second position;
• and
• combine the determined respective risk values to obtain a combined risk map.