2nd International Workshop on Domain-Specific Languages and models for ROBotic systems (DSLRob-11)

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.

Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) and Model-driven Software Development (MDSD) 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 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. This 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.

Submissions 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 Easy Chair website as soon as possible if you intend to submit a paper: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dslrob2011

Important dates

Accepted papers

##Program Pictures taken during the workshop are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sergestinckwich/sets/72157627683376353/

The workshop will take place September 26th 2011 in San Francisco (USA) at Serrano Hotel (405 Taylor Street, San Francisco) a few minutes walk from the IROS 2011 conference location. Registration for the workshop is in itself free but dependent on participating in the workshop lunch buffet at the hotel which costs $39 (this is paid individually, all other expenses are covered by the workshop). Registration by email to dslrob2011.org Friday September 16th at the very latest, let us know if you have any special dietary requirements.

Organization committee

Program committee

Contact

Please contact Serge Stinckwich () for further enquiries about this workshop.