Modal Logics Based on Mathematical Morphology for Qualitative Spatial Reasoning

Abstract

We propose in this paper to construct modal logics based on mathematical morphology. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First we show that mathematical morphology can be used to define modal operators in the context of normal modal logics. We propose definitions of modal operators as algebraic dilations and erosions, based on the notion of adjunction. We detail the particular case of morphological dilations and erosions, and of there compositions, as opening and closing. An extension to the fuzzy case is also proposed. Then we show how this can be interpreted for spatial reasoning by using qualitative symbolic representations of spatial relationships (topological and metric ones) derived from mathematical morphology. This allows to establish some links between numerical and symbolic representations of spatial knowledge.