Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems

Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems has become an emerging hot-topic in Computer Science.  Two international workshop series that are leading the way are the Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS) and the Workshop on Agents and Robots for reliable Engineered Autonomy (AREA). Although related, these workshops have traditionally encompassed different sub-communities. FMAS finds its home in the Formal Methods domain whereas AREA garners attention in the Cognitive Agent and Multi-Agent Systems community.

Although usually distinct, FMAS and AREA have significant overlapping topics. This Lorentz Center Seminar seeks to unify the FMAS and AREA communities through their shared curiosity of the following (combined) research topics:
1. Techniques for verification and validation of autonomous systems,
2. Real world applications of autonomous systems, and
3. Software architectures for safe autonomous systems.

Apart from discussing the above topics that interest both and filling the gaps in each, this workshop aims to produce a white paper and an associated research roadmap that will provide the community with direction in this exciting and fast-advancing domain. This workshop will be the foundation for a joint research community built from these usually separate efforts, leading to future networking grants (such as applying for a COST action) and project proposals. It is likely that the networking opportunities uniquely provided by the Lorentz Center will also spawn new research collaborations that would not have happened otherwise. This will be encouraged throughout the workshop and by incorporating attendees from diverse organisations and geographical locations.