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                Third Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS 2021)

FMAS 2021 is a one-day workshop that brings together researchers working on a range of techniques for the formal verification of autonomous systems, to present recent work in the area, discuss key challenges, and stimulate collaboration between autonomous systems and formal methods researchers.

More details can be found on our website: https://fmasworkshop.github.io/FMAS2021/ (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/0?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Ffmasworkshop.github.io%2FFMAS2021%2F&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)

Our twitter account is: https://twitter.com/FMASWorkshop (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/1?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FFMASWorkshop&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)and posts about this year's workshop use the tag #FMAS2021 (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/2?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3D%2523FMAS2021&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)

Important Dates
Submission: 30th of July 2021 (Anywhere on Earth https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/3?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.timeanddate.com%2Ftime%2Fzones%2Faoe&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0))

Notification: 3rd of September 2021

Final Version due: 24th of September 2021

Workshop: 21st of October 2021

Scope

Autonomous systems present unique challenges for formal methods. They are often embodied in robotic systems that can interact with the real world, and they make independent decisions. Amongst other categories, they can be viewed as safety-critical, cyber-physical, hybrid, and real-time systems.

Key challenges for applying formal methods to autonomous systems include:
the system's dynamic deployment environment;

verifying the system's decision making capabilities -- including planning, ethical, and reconfiguration choices; and

using formal methods results as evidence given to certification or regulatory organisations.

FMAS welcomes submissions that use formal methods to specify, model, or verify autonomous systems; in whole or in part. We are especially interested in work using Integrated Formal Methods, where multiple (formal or non-formal) methods are combined.

Autonomous systems are often embedded in robotic or cyber-physical systems, and they share many features (and verification challenges) with automated systems. FMAS welcomes submissions with applications to:

automated systems,
semi-autonomous systems,

fully-autonomous systems, or

systems that have the potential to be autonomous in the future.

Topics

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

Novel or Integrated Formal Methods that are suited to Autonomous or Automated Systems,
Runtime Verification or other formal approaches to deal with the _reality gap_ (the gap between models/simulations and the real world),

Verification against safety assurance arguments or standards documents,

Case Studies that identify challenges when applying formal methods to autonomous systems,

Experience Reports that provide guidance for tackling challenges with formal methods or tools, or

Discussions of the future directions of the field.

Invited Speakers
FMAS 2021 has two invited speakers:

Title : Help or Hazard: Towards Verifying Autonomous Robot Systems
Speaker : Clare Dixon (https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/clare.dixon.html (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/4?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.research.manchester.ac.uk%2Fportal%2Fclare.dixon.html&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)): Professor of Computer Science at the University of Manchester (UK) and leader of the Autonomy and Verification research group. Clare's research interests include verification of robot and autonomous systems.

Title : Understanding and Verifying Deep Neural Networks
Speaker : Divya Gopinath (https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/profile/dgopinat/ (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/5?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fti.arc.nasa.gov%2Fprofile%2Fdgopinat%2F&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)): Researcher in Formal Verification in the Robust Software Engineering (RSE) group at the NASA Ames Research Center, her research focuses on applying formal methods to analyze and verify neural networks and debug software programs. Divya is also a member of the FMAS2021 Programme Committee.

Submission and Publication

There are two categories of submission:

Short papers -- 6 pages (excluding references), suitable for overviews of an approach or work-in-progress. Work from PhD students is particularly welcome;
Long papers -- 15 pages (excluding references), suitable for descriptions of completed studies, new approaches, or new directions.

Submission will be via easychair (https://easychair.org/conferences/submissions?a=26092751 (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/6?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Feasychair.org%2Fconferences%2Fsubmissions%3Fa%3D26092751&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)); FMAS has a single track that accepts both categories of submission. Submissions must be prepared using the EPTCS LaTeX style (http://style.eptcs.org/ (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/7?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fstyle.eptcs.org%2F&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)).

Each submission will receive at least three, single-blind reviews. If a paper is accepted, at least one of the authors must attend the workshop to present their work. We intend that accepted papers will be published via EPTCS (http://www.eptcs.org/ (https://link.getmailspring.com/link/20C415B1-5688-4E65-8E9B-03EBDAC62794@getmailspring.com/8?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eptcs.org%2F&recipient=ZXVyb2dyYWRAbGlzdHMuZWFzc3QubmV0)).

Venue

FMAS 2021 hopes to be a hybridevent to facilitate both virtual and in-person attendance (COVID-permitting) at Maynooth University, Ireland. This will be confirmed by the 3rd of September 2021 after we assess the possibility of the in-person component. If this is not possible then the workshop will be purely online.

Chairs

Matt Luckcuck , Maynooth University, Ireland
Marie Farrell , Maynooth University, Ireland
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