DSLRob 2011 - 2nd International Workshop on Domain-Specific Languages and models for ROBotic systems 2011

2nd International Workshop on Domain-Specific Languages and models for
ROBotic systems (DSLRob’11)
September 26th 2011, San Francisco, USA
Web site : http://www.doesnotunderstand.org/wikka.php?wakka=D...



The workshop will take place September 26th 2011 in San Francisco (USA) at a venue close to the IROS 2011 conference venue, but is not affiliated with IROS this year. See details below.

Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) and Model-driven Architecture (MDA) are emerging areas of interest in the robotics research community. Both have been instrumental for resolving complex issues in a wide range of domains, including e.g. distributed and modular robotics, control, and vision. The goal of this workshop is to bring together robotics researchers working with DSLs and models in different aspects of robotics.

***Description***

A domain-specific language (DSL) is a programming language dedicated to a particular problem domain that offers specific notations and abstractions that increase programmer productivity within that domain. Models offer a high-level way for domain users to specify the functionality of their system at the right level of abstraction. DSLs and models have historically been used for programming complex systems. However recently they have garnered interest as a separate field of study. Robotic systems blend hardware and software in a holistic way that intrinsically raises many crosscutting concerns (concurrency, uncertainty, time constraints, ...), for which reason, traditional general-purpose languages often lead to a poor fit between the language features and the implementation requirements. DSLs and models offer a powerful, systematic way to overcome this problem, enabling the programmer to quickly and precisely implement novel software solutions to complex problems within the robotics domain.

The main objective of this workshop is a cross-pollination of ideas between robotics researchers in DSLs and models from different domains. DSLs and models are key elements in many robotic systems presented at leading conferences such as IROS and ICRA, but the domain-centric structure of the typical robotics conference does not offer a natural venue for exchange of ideas regarding DSLs and models.

This workshop will focus on the use of Domain-Specific Languages and Models for Robotic Systems. Topics that are of special interest include:
- dynamic languages for robotics,languages to teach robotics, visual languages for robotics,
- domain-specific languages to express reactive behaviors, composition of behaviors, motion description languages (MDL),
- domain-specific languages to express uncertainty, modeling of physical system, real-time constraints,
- domain-specific languages to describe cooperative robotics and modular robotics systems,
- tools support and frameworks for describing and manipulating DSLs for robotic systems,
- code generation and code transformation for robotics systems, variability in robotic systems,
- frameworks to combine DSLs in an uniform manner,
- benchmarks to compare use of DSL vs general-purpose programming, and
- programming languages in the context of robotic systems.

Dynamic languages are considered a topic of special interest at this year's workshop: dynamic languages becoming more popular in the robotics community and often lead to a natural development of "little languages" that are precursors to more structured DSLs.

The intended audience is those robotics researchers throughout the entire robotics community who use DSLs and models as a key component of their robotics software infrastructure. In addition, robotics researchers with an interest in modern approaches to solving complex software-related issues will find the workshop inspirational.

***Relation to previous workshops organized***

A first workshop on the same topic already took place in october 2010 in Taipei, Taiwan during the 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'10). In the first edition, we accepted 4 papers and had two additional presentations during the workshop. 15 people attended the half-day workshop. The proceedings of this workshop are freely available on arXiv. The new workshop will build on the experience and lessons learnt from the previous one.

Serge Stinckwich also organized last year the International Workshop on Dynamic languages for RObotic and Sensors systems (DYROS 2010) during SIMPAR-2010 (Darmstadt, Germany). This year's DSLRob workshop will include dynamic languages as a key topic which should serve to further attract interest from the community.

***Important dates***

- Due date for full workshop papers submission: July 31st 2011
- Final acceptance: August 26th 2011
- Camera-ready paper due: September 9nd 2011
- Workshop date: September 26th 2011

- Location of the workshop: San Francisco (Hotel meeting room as close as possible to IROS. We are currently reviewing options)
- Registration: free (independent of IROS)

***Submission guidelines***

All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity. At least two reviews for each paper will be conducted. All workshop papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format through the EasyChair website and should use the IEEE US letter format.

We are looking for submission of full research papers and experiences reports (up to 8 pages) and work in progress submissions (up to 4 pages).
Please create your account on EasyChair website as soon as possible if you intend to submit a paper: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dslrob2...

A special issue of the Journal of Software Engineering in Robotics (JOSER) related to the workshop will be planned during the workshop.

***Organizers***

- Ulrik P. Schultz, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
- Serge Stinckwich, UMI UMMISCO IRD/UPMC/MSI-IFI, Vietnam

***Program committee***

- Alexandre Bergel, University of Chile, Chile
- Mirko Bordignon, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
- Akim Demaille, Gostai, France
- Jeff Gray, University of Alabama, USA
- Patrick Martin, York College of Pennsylvania, USA
- Henrik Nilsson, University of Nottingham, UK
- Christian Schlegel, Hochschule Ulm, Germany
- Ulrik P. Schultz, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
- Serge Stinckwich, UMMISCO (IRD/UPMC/MSI), Vietnam
- Tewfik Ziadi, LIP6, France
- Mikal Ziane, LIP6, France