Goal-Oriented Logic-based Semantic Communication for Neuro-Symbolic Reasoning with Applications onto Autonomous Driving

Abstract

We consider First-Order Logic (FOL)-based semantic communication for neuro-symbolic decision-making in collaborative environments such as autonomous driving networks. Each connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) converts its partial sensor observations into a natural-language scene description and corresponding grounded FOL evidence. Under an uplink budget, a semantic encoder at each car selects the observations most informative for evaluating traffic rules and transmit to a Road Side Unit (RSU). The RSU fuses all received evidence, evaluates collaborative rules, performs logical deduction for vehicle-specific safety and right-of-way information for constrained downlink transmission. Each CAV combines the received deductions with its local description, enabling a local LLM agent to select a high-level driving action. We develop a principled, verifiable semantic communication method using a random-support Dirichlet--Categorical model of inductive logical probability, providing a modern statistical reinterpretation of Carnap's and Hintikka's systems. From this model, we derive a goal-oriented semantic information-bottleneck formulation that prioritizes evidence transmission by its reduction of uncertainty over task goals. Using 152 traffic rules extracted from the California Driver Handbook, we evaluate the framework on MDrive simulator in CARLA. Under identical communication budgets, semantic evidence selection completes every scenario without safety hazards, whereas uniform evidence selection produces collisions, showcasing semantic communication's superiority.