FMAS 2023 : Fifth Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems

FMAS 2023 is a two-day peer-reviewed international 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. Previous editions are listed on DBLP: https://dblp.dagstuhl.de/db/conf/fmas/index.html.

More details can be found on our website: https://fmasworkshop.github.io/FMAS2023/

Our twitter account is: https://twitter.com/FMASWorkshop and posts about this year's workshop use the tag #FMAS2023

## Important Dates

* Extended Submission: 31st of August 2023 (Anywhere on Earth https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe)
* Extended Notification: 29th September 2023
* Final Version: 20th October 2023
* Workshop: 15th and 16th of November 2023

## 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 during the software engineering process. We encourage submissions that are advancing the applicability of formal methods for autonomous systems, for example improving integration or explainability, automation or knowledge transfer of these technique; a wider discussion of these principles can be found in 'A Manifesto for Applicable Formal Methods' https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.12758.

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, or
* fully-autonomous systems.

### Topics

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

* Applicable, tool-supported Formal Methods that are suited to Autonomous 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,
* Formal specification and requirements engineering approaches for autonomous systems,
* 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.

Because the above list is not exhaustive, if you are unsure if your paper is in scope for FMAS please feel free to email us (addresses below) to discuss it.

## Submission and Publication

There are four categories of submission:

* **Vision papers** *6 pages (excluding references)* describe directions for research into Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems;
* **Research previews** *6 pages (excluding references)* describe well-defined research ideas that are in their early stages, and my not be fully developed yet. Work from PhD students is particularly welcome;
* **Experience report papers** *15 pages (excluding references)* report on practical experiences in applying Formal Methods to Autonomous Systems, focussing on the experience and lessons to be learnt;
* **Regular papers** *15 pages (excluding references)* describe completed applications of Formal Methods to an Autonomous System, new or improved approaches, evaluations of existing approaches, and so on.

These categories are intended to help you show your intent for your paper, and to allow a fairer comparison of papers. For example, a Research Preview won't be judged as not developed enough for acceptance, purely because it is compared to a Standard Paper. The category descriptions are not exhaustive and should be interpreted broadly. If you are unsure if your paper clearly fits into one of these categories, please feel free to email us (details below) to discuss it.

We are applying for a special issue with Science of Computer Programming to accompany FMAS 2023.

### Submission details

* Submission Link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fmas2023
* please select one of the four submission categories during submission
* Submissions must be prepared using the EPTCS LaTeX style.

Each submission will receive at least three, single-blind reviews. If a paper is accepted, at least one of the authors must register for, and attend, the workshop to present their work. We intend that accepted papers will be published via EPTCS http://www.eptcs.org/.

## Venue

FMAS 2023 will be held on the 15th and 16th of November 2023, co-located with the International Conference on Integrated Formal Methods (iFM) 2023 (https://liacs.leidenuniv.nl/~bonsanguemm/ifm23/index.html), hosted by Leiden University, The Netherlands.

We will accept participation in-person and remotely, details are still being finalised.

## Organising Committee

* Matt Luckcuck, University of Derby, UK
* Marie Farrell, University of Manchester, UK
* Mario Gleirscher, University of Bremen, Germany
* Maike Schwammberger, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany