AbSynth 2015

Abstraction and Synthesis of Correct-by-Construction Robotics Software: Reuniting Formal Methods with Model-Driven Software Engineering.

AbSynth 2015 is a two-day workshop to be held in conjunction with the 2015 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference in Rome, Italy on July 16-17, 2015.

The increasing use of automation in safety- and mission-critical situations encourages the development of theories and techniques that can provide formal guarantees on the performance of the system. Model-Driven Software Engineering (MDSE) and Formal Methods (FM) are closely related in that that they both seek abstractions that preserve the important properties of the underlying concrete system, as well as provide rigorous methods for system design to ensure desirable behavior with respect to complex specifications. However, much like the divergence of classical AI and Robotics into separate fields concerned with high-level and low-level details of the same systems (i.e. robots), FM and MDSE have diverged. MDSE research in robotics is aligned with the primary goal of creating quality low-level software for robotic systems, while formal methods apply chiefly to the design and validation of systems at a high-level of abstraction. It is clear, however, that the two are complimentary, and that a reunification is overdue. Quality, reliable software for robotic systems created using MDSE will facilitate the abstraction and modeling of robotic systems, which further promotes the adoption of FM in constructing robotic systems with a high degree of autonomy.

Goals

This workshop aims to advance the research and development of theory, tools and applications of FM and MDSE to robotics and automation. To this end, the concrete goals are three-fold:
  • Presenting new theories and tools in FM and MDSE, which can be readily used in the control and verification of robotic systems.
  • Fostering dialogue and collaboration between researchers in these two communities.
  • Proposing challenging and important research questions about the integration of FM with MDSE, and their application to robotic systems.

Organizers

 Contact the organizers: absynth2015@easychair.org	

Funding

  • This workshop is supported in part by TerraSwarm, one of six centers of STARnet, a Semiconductor Research Corporation program sponsored by MARCO and DARPA.