We present a method, which incorporates knowledge awareness into the symbolic
computation of discrete controllers for reactive cyber physical systems, to
improve decision making about the unknown operating environment under
uncertain/incomplete inputs. Assuming an abstract model of the system and the
environment, we translate the knowledge awareness of the operating context into
linear temporal logic formulas and incorporate them into the system
specifications to synthesize a controller. The knowledge base is built upon an
ontology model of the environment objects and behavioural rules, which includes
also symbolic models of partial input features. The resulting symbolic
controller support smoother, early reactions, which improves the security of
the system over existing approaches based on incremental symbolic perception. A
motion planning case study for an autonomous vehicle has been implemented to
validate the approach, and presented results show significant improvements with
respect to safety of state-of-the-art symbolic controllers for reactive
systems