Commonsense visual sensemaking for autonomous driving – On generalised neurosymbolic online abduction integrating vision and semantics

We demonstrate the need and potential of systematically integrated vision and semantics solutions for visual sensemaking in the backdrop of autonomous driving. A general neurosymbolic method for online visual sensemaking using answer set programming (ASP) is systematically formalised and fully implemented. The method integrates state of the art in visual computing, and is developed as a modular framework that is generally usable within hybrid architectures for realtime perception and control. We evaluate and demonstrate with community established benchmarks KITTIMOD, MOT-2017, and MOT-2020. As use-case, we focus on the significance of human-centred visual sensemaking —e.g., involving semantic representation and explainability, question-answering, commonsense interpolation— in safety-critical autonomous driving situations.