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Call for Papers
Second Workshop on Agents and Robots for reliable Engineered Autonomy (AREA)

Co-located with IJCAI/ECAI 2022
Workshop: 23rd-25th July 2022 (EXACT DAY TO BE CONFIRMED)

(Conference: 23rd-29th of July, 2022)
Vienna, Austria

Info: https://areaworkshop.github.io/AREA2022/
Contact: area.workshop.info@gmail.com

We apologise for any duplicates of this CFP that you may receive of this.

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IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract Submission (optional): 29th April 2022
Paper Submission Deadline: 6th May 2022 (AoE, UTC-12)
Paper Notification: 3rd June 2022
Camera Ready: 17th June 2022
Workshop: 23rd-25th July 2022 (EXACT DAY TO BE CONFIRMED)

SCOPE

Autonomous agents is a well-established area that has been researched for decades, both from a design and implementation viewpoint. Nonetheless, the application of agents in real-world scenarios has largely been adopted in applications which are primarily software based, and remains limited in applications which involve physical interaction. In parallel, robots are no longer used only in tightly constrained industrial applications but are instead being applied in an increasing number of domains, ranging from robotic assistants to search and rescue, where the working environment is both dynamic and underspecified, and may involve interactions between multiple robots and humans.

This presents significant challenges to traditional software engineering methodologies. Increased autonomy is an important route to enabling robotic applications to function in these environments, and autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are a promising approach to their engineering. As autonomy and interaction increases, the engineering of reliable behaviour becomes more challenging (both in robotic applications and in more traditional autonomous agent settings), and so there is a need for research into new approaches to verification and validation that can be integrated in the engineering lifecycle of these systems.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers from the autonomous agents and the robotics communities, since combining knowledge from these two research areas may lead to innovative approaches that solve complex problems related to the verification and validation of autonomous robotic systems. Therefore, we encourage submissions that combine agents, robots, software engineering, and verification, but we also welcome papers focused on one of these areas, as long as their applicability to the other areas is explicit.

TOPICS

The main topics include but are not limited to:
- Agent-based modular architectures applicable to robots
- Agent-oriented software engineering to model high-level control in robotic development
- Agent programming languages and tools for developing robotic or intelligent autonomous systems
- Coordination, interaction, and negotiation protocols for agents and robots
- Distributed problem solving and automated planning in autonomous systems
- Fault tolerance, health management, and long-term autonomy
- Real-world applications of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems in robotics
- Real-time multi-agent systems
- Reliable software engineering of autonomy
- Runtime verification of autonomous agents and robotic systems
- Task and resource allocation in multi-robot systems
- Verification and validation of autonomous systems
- Testing and simulation tools and techniques for autonomous or robotic systems
- Engineering reliable interactions between humans and autonomous robots or agents
- Verification and validation of human-robot interactions
- Engineering transparent decision making for autonomous systems

SUBMISSIONS

Participants are invited to submit either:
- a full-length research paper: a technical paper describing technically sound, innovative ideas that can advance the engineering/reliability of agents and robots; an application/case study paper, with emphasis on robotic applications where agents techniques have been applied; a survey paper on one of the topics of interest.

- a short paper: a position paper describing relevant questions and issues that participants feel should be addressed; a demo paper describing a demonstration of an agent/robotic application, system or tool; a new idea in the field which is not ready for publication as a regular paper.

Full-length research papers must not exceed twelve (12) pages single column, and short papers must not exceed six (6) pages single column, excluding references and appendices. All submissions must be in English and PDF format.
Each submission will receive at least three single-blind reviews. All papers should be original and not be submitted elsewhere. The review process is single-blind: submissions should not be blind, reviewers will be.

In case of acceptance, at least one of the authors should attend the workshop to present their work.

The proceedings of the workshop will be published with EPTCS (http://www.eptcs.org/). Formatting guidelines should follow EPTCS style: http://style.eptcs.org/

Submission link: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=area22

After the workshop, we will consider applying for a journal special issue (journal to be selected later), where revised selected and extended papers can be published.

WORKSHOP FORMAT

This event is planned as a half-day workshop taking approximately 5 hours. Depending on the number of submissions, we may organise a discussion panel at the end. We also expect to have at least two invited talks (to be announced later).


Kind regards, the organisers:

Rafael C. Cardoso, University of Aberdeen (UK)
Angelo Ferrando, University of Genova (Italy)
Fabio Papacchini, Lancaster University Leipzig (Germany)
Mehrnoosh Askarpour, McMaster University (Canada)
Louise A. Dennis, The University of Manchester (UK)