Category: Status Updates

Call for Papers and Experts – 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS 2024) in Hong Kong

Posted on by bennyakesson

I have the honor of being the Program Chair of the 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS 2024), located in Hong Kong May 13-16 next year. Please see the Call for Papers below.

Soon, it will be time to put together the Technical Program Committee (TPC) that will review and select the papers that will appear in the conference program. If you are interested in joining the TPC of this conference, or any other conference (co-)sponsored by the Technical Community of Real-Time Systems (TCRTS), please fill out the TPC self-nomination form as soon as possible. We always welcome self-nominations from our own community, but this year we especially encourage self-nominations from the academic performance engineering community, as well as members of the industry that work with real-time requirements or performance engineering, defined in a broad sense.

If you have any questions, please feel to reach out to me. If want to self-nominate, click this link. A self-nomination is not a firm commitment, it is just a declaration of interest that may result in an invitation.

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30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS 2024)

Hong Kong, May 13-16, 2024

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CALL FOR PAPERS

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RTAS is a top-tier conference with a focus on time-sensitive systems. RTAS’24 invites papers describing case studies, applications, methodologies, and algorithms that contribute to the state of practice in design, implementation, verification, validation, and evolution of time-sensitive systems. RTAS’24 consists of two tracks:

  • Track 1. Systems and Applications;
  • Track 2. Applied Methodologies and Foundations.

In both tracks, papers must consider some kind of timing requirements. The timing requirements of interest are broadly defined and include not only classical hard real-time constraints, but also soft real-time, probabilistic, quality-of-service (QoS), throughput or latency requirements. The application area can be any type of time-sensitive systems, ranging from resource-constrained embedded systems to cyber-physical systems (CPS), cloud/edge/fog computing systems, cloud data centers, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile computing, robotics,  smart grid, and smart cities, as well as middleware and frameworks, machine learning in or for time-sensitive systems and signal processing algorithms that execute in real time. RTAS welcomes both papers backed by formal proofs, as well as papers that focus exclusively on empirical validation of timing requirements, e.g., using traces or performance models inferred from operational data. Research results from fundamental research, (case-driven) applied research, and (pragmatic) industry practice are all in scope.

RTAS’24 follows a double-anonymous peer reviewing process: author identities and affiliations will not be revealed to reviewers. Authors will have the opportunity to provide a response to reviews before acceptance decisions are made, solely to provide clarifications and correct misconceptions. The response will not allow authors to introduce new material beyond the original submission, or promise such material for the camera-ready version. There will be an optional evaluation process for accepted papers that assesses the reproducibility of the work.

Track 1: Systems and Applications

This track focuses on research of an empirical nature pertaining to (system- or component-) level analysis, optimization, and verification, as well as applications, runtime software, and hardware architectures for time-sensitive systems.

Topics relevant to this track include, but are not limited to:

  • time-sensitive applications
  • real-time and embedded operating systems,
  • hypervisors and runtime frameworks,
  • hardware architectures, memory hierarchies, FPGAs, GPUs and accelerators,
  • time-sensitive networks, CPS/IoT infrastructure,
  • microservice technologies, cloud and edge computing, real-time artificial intelligence and machine learning,
  • application profiling, WCET analysis, compilers, tools, benchmarks and case studies.

Papers discussing design and implementation experiences on real industrial systems are especially encouraged. Papers submitted to this track should focus on specific systems and implementations. Authors must include a section with experimental results performed on a real implementation, or demonstrate applicability to an industrial case study or working system. The experiment or case study discussions must highlight the key lessons learned. Simulation-based results are acceptable for architectural simulation, or other cases where authors clearly motivate why it is not feasible to develop and evaluate a real system.

Empirical survey-based research focused on the real-time systems field is also welcome in this track. This type of research uses surveys, questionnaires, interviews, use cases or other empirical techniques to obtain information about the past / current / future state of play in the research, design, development, verification, validation, and deployment of time-sensitive systems.

Track 2: Applied Methodologies and Foundations

This track focuses on fundamental models, and analysis techniques/methods that are applicable to time-sensitive systems to solve specific problems. The track welcomes knowledge-based models, models built from operational data, as well as a combination, and different types of analysis methods, including analytical, statistical, or probabilistic methods. Topics relevant to this track include, but are not limited to:

  • modelling languages, modelling methods, model learning, model validation and calibration,
  • scheduling and resource allocation,
  • system-level optimization and co-design techniques,
  • design space exploration,
  • verification and validation methodologies.

Papers must describe the main context or use case for the proposed methods giving clear motivating examples based on real systems. The system models and any assumptions used in the derivation of the methods must be applicable to real systems, and reflect actual needs. Papers must include a section on experimental results, preferably including a case study based on information from a real system. The use of synthetic workloads and models is acceptable if appropriately motivated and used to provide a systematic evaluation.

Important Dates

Submission Deadline (firm): October 31, 2023
Author Response Period: January 8-12, 2024
Author Notification: January 19, 2024
Conference Date: May 13-16, 2024

 

Inaugural Lecture Explores Managing Complexity of High-Tech Systems

Posted on by bennyakesson

Today, I finally gave my inaugural lecture “Managing Complexity in High-tech Systems” to celebrate my appointment as Endowed Professor at the University of Amsterdam, which happened back in 2019.

The academic ceremony started at 16:00 with a small reception for fellow professors and members of the curatorium. Together, this group walked in a procession into the beautiful auditorium of the University of Amsterdam, where an audience of colleagues, family, and friends, where waiting in anticipation. The lecture discussed the challenge of increasing complexity in the high-tech equipment industry and how new (model-based) development methodologies leveraging abstraction, boundedness, and composition, are required to address it. I argued that the required innovation should come from collaboration in an innovation chain, where universities, applied research organizations, and industry work together in strategic partnerships. The presentation was concluded with a number of concrete examples of what this collaboration could look like, based on examples from my education and research at TNO and the University of Amsterdam. The inaugural lecture was followed by a reception full of networking and congratulations. I would like to thank everybody that showed up for the event, physically and online. Together, we created a memory that I will treasure for a lifetime.

If you did not manage to attend the lecture, or see it online, there is a recording available. Pop some popcorn, take a seat, and click the link below:

https://webcolleges.uva.nl/Mediasite/Play/99497b81432a49acb57f0ae7a32050d11d

Driving Innovation and Collaboration: Dutch Real-time Days Event Sparks Ideas for Future Research and Industry Relevance

Posted on by bennyakesson

I recently co-organized a Dutch Real-time Days event together with real-time systems researchers from TU/e and UT. The event was funded through a 4TU.NIRICT Call Community Funding and its goals were to:

1) share and develop new ideas for real-time systems research,
2) stimulate new collaborations, and
3) networking.

In addition to the four organizers from the Netherlands, Mitra Nasri (TU/e), Geoffrey Nelissen (TU/e), Kuan-Hsun Chen (UT), and myself, four well-established European researchers in the area of real-time systems were invited to the event. Everybody was invited to pitch their current work, ideas for future directions, and appropriate mechanisms to support collaborations. This was followed by brainstorming sessions were these ideas were creatively improved, as well as a working session where some of the ideas were discussed in more detail and made actionable. At the end of the first day, there was a lovely dinner at Restaurant Giornale in Eindhoven, providing further room for discussions and networking.

The outcome of the two days was a mix of technical ideas that can be pursued in future research papers or project proposals, and actions to shape direction of the academic real-time systems community and further increase its industrial relevance. For example, we agreed to propose that the Technical Community on Real-time Systems (TCRTS) adds an award for industry impact/technology transfer and propose a special issue on industry challenges/visions in the Journal of Real-time Systems.

Survey of Industry Practice on Top Lists of Real-time Systems Journal 2021

Posted on by bennyakesson

I am pleased to see that our work “A comprehensive survey of industry practice in real-time systems” made both the lists for most downloaded and most cited articles in the Real-time Systems journal of 2021. I hope this is an indicator that people appreciate the paper, but also that it inspires other to pursue empirical survey-based or interview-based research in the area of real-time systems.

Next week, Mitra Nasri will pitch the case for empirical research into industry practice and perspective in real-time systems at ECRTS. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear her speak and share your thoughts on this topic and how it may help the field forward. For those of you that are not able to attend ECRTS, you can read my blog making the case for empirical survey-based research here.

Serving the Real-time Systems Community

Posted on by bennyakesson

I have been a part of the academic real-time systems community for many years by serving on the technical program committee of many key conferences, as well as reviewing articles for the real-time systems journal. This year, I am serving the real-time systems community in the following four ways.

I look forward to working with and serving the community in these roles.

Modelling and Analysis of Component-based Systems (MOANA-CBS) Course Update

Posted on by bennyakesson

Last year, ESI (TNO) and Thales developed a two-day course on Modelling and Analysis of Component-based Systems (MOANA-CBS) as a part of the DYNAMICS project. The course addresses the trend to tackle software complexity by decomposing monolithic software into loosely coupled components. While this trend manages complexity through improved scalability, adaptability, and testability, it also increases concurrency and asynchronous communication. This may in turn lead to an explosion in possible behaviors. As a consequence, it is hard to oversee the behavior of such systems, resulting in situations where early design errors are detected much later in the system lifecycle with exponentially rising costs. The course targets software and system architects/engineers involved in design and implementation of components and interfaces, and teaches methods for modelling and analyzing them to guarantee that they are free from deadlocks, livelocks, races, and buffer overflows.

We piloted the course material both in academic and industrial environments. The former was as a part of my course Embedded Software and Systems, a part of the Software Engineering Master  at the University of Amsterdam. The latter was as a part of the Accelerate program run by Thales and Luminis to accelerate their medior software talent to a senior level. Thales recently published an interview with Patrick Schulenberg, one of the participants in the program, about his experience. Patrick explains that the program has been an excellent opportunity for him to grow within the company, and mentions the positive impact of our course: “ESI taught a class about interface modeling, sharing their experiences with using the Comma framework at Philips – this was a trigger for us to put practical modeling proficiency on our roadmap”.

Currently, we are developing an updated version of the MOANA-CBS course that will have closer ties to ComMA, an open-source domain-specific language initially developed by Philips and ESI that is currently used by several companies. This update will strengthen the practical applicability of the course for users of ComMA, and will introduce unfamiliar users to interface modelling and analysis through hands-on experience with the tool. The new version of the course is expected to be ready in Q3.

Thales and University of Amsterdam Strengthen the ESI Ecosystem

Posted on by bennyakesson

ESI has just made a press release to announce that both Thales and the University of Amsterdam (UvA) has joined as partners in its open-innovation ecosystem. ESI’s ecosystem, based on open innovation, plays an important role in maintaining the leading competitive position of the Dutch high-tech industry. Together with universities and partner companies, ESI develops methodologies and tooling that are in line with the vision and needs of the high-tech industry, making use of the latest insights from universities. In an industry-as-a-lab setting, system engineering methodologies are developed, tested and validated on site at and with partners.

With the addition of UvA and Thales, ESI’s ecosystem now has more industrial and academic partners than ever before, which shows great promise in difficult times. Personally, I am very happy to see that the university where I work decided to further invest in its collaboration with ESI and join the partner board. Similarly, Thales is the company I have worked with in applied research projects for the past five years, and it pleases me that they see the benefits of this collaboration.

Read the full press release from ESI here.

Update:
The press release was picked up by a number of different media outlets, e.g.

UvA – UvA Informatics Institute and Thales strengthen ESI open-innovation ecosystem

Bits & Chips – Thales and UvA (re)join ESI

Emerce – Thales en het Informatica Instituut van de Universiteit van Amsterdam versterken ESI (TNO) open-innovatie ecosysteem

Link Magazine -Thales en de Universiteit van Amsterdam versterken het open-innovatie systeem van ESI TNO 

Engineers Online – Thales en UvA versterken Esi open-innovatie ecosysteem voor hightech

Embedded Software and Systems Course @ UvA Continues to Evolve

Posted on by bennyakesson

The fall semester of the very special academic year 2020/2021 is over. Most of the students following the Master of Software Engineering program at the University of Amsterdam have just completed my course Embedded Software and Systems (ESS). The ESS course had changed in a three important ways this year.

Firstly, a generic lecture about Petri Nets was changed to a series about two lectures, explaining how Petri Nets can be used to model and analyze software interfaces and components. Part of the material for this course was reused from the course Modelling and Analysis of Component-based Systems (MOANA-CBS), developed together with Thales targeting an industrial audience. These new lectures also prime students nicely for a lecture about the DYNAMICS project, a research collaboration between ESI and Thales. This allows me to show how these models and analyses can be used in practice to address problems related to software evolution by detecting incompatibilities and generating adapters when updating software interfaces. A generic lecture about the data-flow model of computation was removed to create room for this new material, but I am happy to teach fewer modelling formalisms and have more time to go in depth and show how they can be used to solve industrial problems. A nice result of this change to the course is that three master students have accepted thesis projects in the area of modelling and analysis of software components and interfaces in collaboration with ESI under the supervision of myself and my colleague Debjyoti Bera.

Secondly, the course project was redeveloped this year. Previously, students used Mathworks Stateflow to program Lego Mindstorm EV3 rovers to follow a line, avoid obstacles, and count objects. However, this project felt a bit too much like a toy and there were technical problems with both rovers and tools that were hard to overcome and limited the education experience. In particular, it was not easily possible to see or influence how code was generated for the Lego Mindstorm robots, which felt like a missed opportunity when teaching model-based engineering. 

Two bachelor students did their theses in spring to evaluate the suitability of using the TurtleBot3 Burger robot, both in reality and in simulation using Gazebo, in the course. In addition, Stateflow was exchanged for Yakindu Statechart Tools, which is easier to use and gives us the flexibility we need in code generation. The new application developed in the project is to use Yakindu to program the TurtleBot to autonomously drive through a maze and map it.

Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic required the entire course to be taught online. As a result, used a blended learning approach and prerecorded the lectures so that the students could watch them when they wanted to. Online interactive sessions were added to the course where the students could ask questions about the lectures, and participate in quizzes and group discussions. Online teaching meant that the students did not have access to the four physical TurtleBots that we had purchased. Luckily, the newly developed course project could be done with simulations in Gazebo. Below is a demo from one of the groups that very successfully solved the assignment. 

The ESS course is continuously evolving and maturing and next year will be no different. Most importantly, we hope that the pandemic will be over by then and that we can put our three physical TurtleBots to good use.

License to Teach

Posted on by bennyakesson

It is my great pleasure to announce that I have received my University Teaching Qualification (UTQ), essentially my license to teach. The UTQ (Basiskwalificatie Onderwijs, BKO in Dutch) is a proof of teaching skills for university teaching staff, which allows you to demonstrate a proven ability to develop and teach courses at university level. It is recognized by all Dutch universities.

One of the most important things I have learned during the UTQ trajectory is the constructive alignment method for course design. I already knew that aligning goals, execution, and assessment was an important part of course design, yet challenging to do in practice. I appreciate that the constructive alignment workshops not only communicated the importance of this alignment, but also provided the tools (e.g. specification tables and tips for assessment) to identify and address misalignments. Constructive alignment may not be the only way to approach course design, but I see it as a very useful method and a good starting point from which further exploration can be done.

One of my stated goals was to learn how to make my lectures more interactive. This is something I knew was important to further improve my teaching, but I did not quite know how to achieve. This was addressed by the workshop on activating teaching that came paired with the excellent list of 50 Classroom Assessment Teachniques (CATs)  by Angelo and Cross. Based on this material, I have now significantly increased the level of interaction and formative assessment in my course Embedded Software and Systems.

Lastly, the module about organizing teaching was very important to lift my view from my course and start looking more at the program that provides the context, in my case the Master of Software Engineering program. Being aware of this context not only makes my course better, but also the program, resulting in a better educational experience for the students. Interviewing people in the program for this module also provided a trigger to go talk to colleagues and build a network that will help both my research and education at UvA going forward.

Design Methodologies for Cyber-physical Systems

Posted on by bennyakesson

In this short two minute presentation, I introduce myself and my fundamental and academic research into design methodologies for cyber-physical systems. I sketch a high-level view of the problem and outline a direction based on model-based engineering in which my previous work into domain-specific languages and analysis non-functional behavior fits. For a more elaborate description of my research, please have a look at my research page.