From RoSE18

Theme & Goals

Robotics is one of the most challenging domains for software engineering. Deploying even simple applications requires integrating solutions from experts of various domains, including navigation, path planning, manipulation, localization, human-robot interaction, etc. Integration of modules contributed by respective domain experts is one of the key challenges in engineering software-centric systems, yet only one of the cross-cutting software concerns crucial to robotics. As robots often operate in dynamic, partially observable environments additional challenges include adaptability, robustness, safety, and security.

The goal of RoSE 2018 is to bring together researchers from participating domains with practitioners to identify new frontiers in robotics software engineering, discuss challenges raised by real-world applications, and transfer latest insights from research to industry. RoSE 2018 will solicit contributions from both academic and industrial participants, thus fostering active synergy between the two communities.

Topics of Interest

RoSE 2018 seeks contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics related to robotics software engineering:

• Analysis of challenges in robotic software engineering
• Architectures that lead to reusable robotic software engineering
• Challenges for defining and integrating domain-specific languages for the design of robotic systems
• Continuous integration and deployment in robotics
• Description and analysis of design principles promoting service quality attributes (e.g., performance, energy efficiency)
• Engineering the collaboration of multiple (heterogeneous) robots
• Identification and description of design principles in robot software architectures
• Lessons learned in the engineering and deployment of large-scale, real-world integrated robot software architectures
• Machine learning in safety-critical domains
• Metrics to measure non-functional properties (e.g., robustness, availability, etc.) and their application
• State-of-the-art research projects, innovative ideas, and field-based studies
• Software engineering best practices in robotics
• Processes and tools supporting engineering and development of robotic systems
• Variability, modularity, and reusability in robotics
• Validation and verification of robot software

Preliminary Workshop Program

Session 1: Introduction and Keynote (09:00 - 10:30)

• Opening by the organizers (09:00 - 09:10)

Keynote: Lars Asplund - Robotics Now and in the Future - Special Needs in Robotic Programming (09:10 - 10:30)

The talk will start with an overview of robotics development in the last years, and why robotics is taken off right now. This will cover different kinds of robots and special attention will be put on the software that is required in robotic systems. This includes, for instance, real-time systems, AI-systems, embedded systems and distributed systems. What about safety? What are the special needs in all these areas?

Professor emeritus Lars Asplund at Mälardlaen University has a PhD in physics with Laureate Kai Siegbahn, but changed direction into computer science after some years. Done research in molecular physics, embedded systems. distributed systems, learning systems, real-time systems, and robotics. Written 10 textbooks in electronics and robotics. One of the founders of Robotdalen – a triple helix in Sweden for robotics. Founder of two companies in robotics, Robyn Robotics AB, and Unibap AB. Robyn Robotics are producing a robot cat for people with dementia and is sold in ten countries. Unibap listed on the stock exchange Nasdaq First North is using modern AI and computer science methods to give industrial robots ability to see and think and produces computer systems that are used in satellites. First test systems were launched in 2016.

Session 2: Compositional Robotics Software (11:00 - 12:30)

• Thomas Witte and Matthias Tichy. Checking consistency of robot software architectures in ROS (11:00 - 11:20)
• Gianluca Bardaro, Matteo Matteucci and Andrea Semprebon. A use case in model-based robot development using AADL and ROS (11:20 - 11:40)
• Shahar Maoz and Jan Oliver Ringert. On the Software Engineering Challenges of Applying Reactive Synthesis to Robotics (11:40 - 12:00)
• Loli Burgueño, Tanja Mayerhofer, Manuel Wimmer and Antonio Vallecillo. Using Physical Quantities in Robot Software Models (12:00 - 12:20)

Session 3: Swarm Robotics and Visions of Advanced Robotics Software Engineering (14:00 - 15:30)

• Daniel Sykes and Gavin Keighren. Maximising Productivity In Industrial-Scale Environments With Bounded Uncertainty (14:00 - 14:20)
• Darko Bozhinoski and Mauro Birattari. Designing control software for robot swarms (14:20 - 14:35) Presentation
• Giovanni Beltrame, Ettore Merlo, Jacopo Panerati and Carlo Pinciroli. Engineering Safety in Swarm Robotics (14:35 - 14:50): Presentation
• John-Paul Ore, Carrick Detweiler and Sebastian Elbaum. Towards Code-Aware Robotic Simulation (14:50 - 15:05)
• Neil Ernst, Rick Kazman and Philip Bianco. Towards Rapid Composition with Confidence in Robotics Software (15:05 - 15:20)
• Ivano Malavolta, Sara Ljungblad - Challenges in Software Engineering in Robotics (15:20 - 15:30)

Session 4: Tools, Discussion, and Closing (16:00 - 17:30)

Tools and Demonstrations on Software Engineering in Robotics (16:00 - 17:00)

• Sebastian Wrede and Dennis Wigand - A Model-based Specification and Analysis Architecture for Real-Time Robotics Systems (16:00 - 16:15)
• Gianluca Bardaro, Andrea Semprebon, and Matteo Matteucci - AADL2ROS: a toolchain for automatic code generation (16:15 - 16:30)
• Nico Hochgeschwender and Loïc Gammaitoni - Exploring the Design Space of Robot Perception Systems (16:30 - 16:45)
• Claudio Menghi, Sergio Garcia, Patrizio Pelliccione, Thorsten Berger - User-friendly specification of robotic missions (16:45 - 17:00)

Discussion on Challenges and Opportunities (17:00 - 17:25)

• Discussion

Closing (17:25 - 17:30)

• Closing by the organizers

Submission Guidelines

Prospective participants are invited to submit

• research papers presenting novel contributions on advancing software engineering in robotics (6-8 pages)
• challenge showcase papers describing robotics challenges considered insufficiently addressed from an industry perspective (4-6 pages)
• vision papers on the future of software engineering in robotics (2-4 pages)

Workshop papers must follow the ICSE 2018 Format and Submission Guideline, but will use a single blind submission process. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity by the program committee. All workshop papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format through the workshop website. Accepted papers will become part of the workshop proceedings.

Important Dates

• Mon 5 Feb 2018: Workshop papers submissions
• Mon 5 Mar 2018: Notification of accepted papers (strict deadline)
• Mon 19 Mar 2018: Camera ready copies (strict deadline)

Organizing Committee

• Federico Ciccozzi, Mälardalen University, Sweden
• Davide Di Ruscio, University of L’Aquila, Italy
• Ivano Malavolta, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Patrizio Pelliccione, Chalmers University of Technology | University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Andreas Wortmann, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Program Committee

• Leif Ahlman, Drones Networking, Sweden
• Karl-Erik Årzén, University of Lund, Sweden
• Mauro Birattari, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
• Darko Bozhinoski, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Davide Brugali, University of Bergamo, Italy
• Mathias Buerger, Bosch, Germany
• Javier Camara Moreno, CMU, USA
• Alessandro di Fava, Pal Robotics, Spainn
• Juergen Dingel, Queen's School of Computing, Canada
• Francesco Ferro, Pal Robotics, Spain
• David Garlan, CMU, USA
• Holger Giese, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Germany
• Sebastian Götz, University of Dresden, Germany
• Peter Gorm Larsen, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Fredrik Heintz, Linköping University, Sweden
• Rogardt Heldal, Høgskulen på Vestlandet, Norway
• Nico Hochgeschwender, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• Rajeev Joshi, JPL, USA
• Danica Kragic, KTH, Sweden
• Martina Maggio, University of Lund, Sweden
• Claudio Menghi, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Arne Nordmann, Bosch, Germany
• Ivan Ruchkin, CMU, USA
• Andrey Rusakov, ETH, Switzerland
• Christian Schlegel, University of Applied Sciences Ulm, Germany
• Ulrik Pagh Schultz, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
• Ulrike Thomas, University of Chemnitz, Germany
• Jana Tumova, KTH, Sweden
• Andrzej Wasowski, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Sebastian Wrede, University of Bielefeld, Germany

Call for Papers

• Call for Papers (PDF)