System and Method for Controlling Autonomous Vehicle in Uncertain Environment

A controller for controlling an ego vehicle in an environment surrounding the ego vehicle and including at least one moving object, the controller comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and memory having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the controller to:
• acquire knowledge of the environment from measurements of at least one sensor of the ego vehicle sensing the environment based on at least one of:
• a state of the ego vehicle, and sensing instructions associated with controlling an operation of the sensor;
• process the acquired knowledge of the environment to estimate a state of the environment, the state of the environment including a state of the at least one moving object and uncertainty of the state of the environment including uncertainty of the state of the at least one moving object;
• determine jointly, a sequence of control inputs for controlling the ego vehicle, the sequence of control inputs defining a state trajectory of the ego vehicle;
• and a sequence of sensing instructions to the at least one sensor defining a desired knowledge of the environment, wherein the sequence of control inputs being determined by solving a multivariable and a multistage stochastic constrained optimization of a model of the motion of the ego vehicle, the model of the motion relating the state trajectory with the sequence of control inputs subject to chance constraints on admissible values of the states of the ego vehicle and the control inputs to the ego vehicle defined based on the desired knowledge of the environment caused by at least some possible transitions of the state of the moving object at different stages of the stochastic constrained optimization and corresponding uncertainties of the transitioned states of the moving object in the acquired knowledge;
• and
• control the ego vehicle and the sensor based on the sequence of control inputs and the sequence of sensing instructions.