NEUSIS: A Compositional Neuro-Symbolic Framework for Autonomous Perception, Reasoning, and Planning in Complex UAV Search Missions

TL;DR

NEUSIS is a neuro-symbolic framework that enables autonomous UAVs to perceive, reason, and plan effectively in complex, hazard-filled environments for search missions, outperforming existing models in success and efficiency.

Contribution

The paper introduces NEUSIS, a novel compositional neuro-symbolic system that integrates perception, reasoning, and hierarchical planning for UAV search tasks in complex environments.

Findings

NEUSIS outperforms state-of-the-art models in success rate and efficiency.

The system effectively localizes entities in 3D within urban search scenarios.

Experimental validation demonstrates robustness in realistic simulated environments.

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of autonomous UAV search missions, where a UAV must locate specific Entities of Interest (EOIs) within a time limit, based on brief descriptions in large, hazard-prone environments with keep-out zones. The UAV must perceive, reason, and make decisions with limited and uncertain information. We propose NEUSIS, a compositional neuro-symbolic system designed for interpretable UAV search and navigation in realistic scenarios. NEUSIS integrates neuro-symbolic visual perception, reasoning, and grounding (GRiD) to process raw sensory inputs, maintains a probabilistic world model for environment representation, and uses a hierarchical planning component (SNaC) for efficient path planning. Experimental results from simulated urban search missions using AirSim and Unreal Engine show that NEUSIS outperforms a state-of-the-art (SOTA) vision-language model and a SOTA search planning model in success rate, search efficiency, and 3D localization. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our compositional neuro-symbolic approach in handling complex, real-world scenarios, making it a promising solution for autonomous UAV systems in search missions.