Paper submissions should be in the IEEE RAS conference format. Download the ieeeconf.zip from this page.
See the deadlines below.
Call for Papers
The 1st International Conference on Engineering Reliable Autonomous Systems (ERAS) will be held in Worcester, MA, USA from May 29 to May 30, 2025.
ERAS aims to offer a space for all stakeholders across autonomous system reliability to come together to discuss the key challenges and present progress made towards solving them. The scope of the conference is on all the aspects of engineering reliable autonomous systems, ranging from systems and software engineering to their verification and evaluation. For the purpose of this conference, "autonomous systems" is synonymous with "systems that make their own decisions and can take their own actions," and includes everything from autonomous decision-making software running in a virtual environment to teams of autonomous robots operating in a distributed physical environment, everything from simple reactive systems with no planning capability to complex systems incorporating machine learning and reasoning engines. Contributions addressing aspects of reliability across the entire life cycle of the system are welcome.
We invite submissions of original unpublished papers. All accepted (regular/short/position) papers will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on IEEE Xplore. A short list of high-quality presented papers will be selected for their revised and extended versions to be published by ASME in the Special Issue of the Journal of Autonomous Vehicles and Systems.
At ERAS 2025, we plan to host a number of half-day workshops focusing on specific topics in the area of reliable autonomous systems. The workshops shall provide a platform for intense discussions of specific aspects of engineering autonomous systems and for starting discussions on new and emerging topics. We specifically welcome workshops that aim to bring together researchers and practitioners from different areas for lively discussions and exchange on novel and/or preliminary results from their communities to foster cross-community exchange. In addition to workshops, we also welcome relevant tutorial proposals that are specifically helpful for newcomers to the field.
We also solicit proposals for panels that shall provide a platform for discussion of 3-5 renowned experts from the field of engineering reliable autonomous systems on a topic that is of overarching interest to the ERAS target audience. Panels will be held as part of the main conference.
Workshop proposals should be no more than 6 pages in length and must conform to the ERAS 2025 paper formatting guidelines and include the following information:
Workshop title and organizers (name, affiliation, e-mail address and a short biography)
Information on the organizing committee members (confirmed /expected program committee members with their name, affiliation, e-mail address)
Description of the goals and topics of the workshop including their relevance for ERAS
Planned workshop format including desired forms of sessions (e.g., paper presentations, poster session, etc,), tentative schedule, and required audio/visual equipment.
Information on the submission evaluation process.
Intended publication venue of accepted contributions and/or plans for potential journal extensions.
Short description of the intended target audience, expected number of participants, plans to encourage interaction among participants, and plans to enhance diversity and inclusion among participants.
Detail plan to solicit participation in your event if it is accepted.
Links to additional resources (e.g., workshop web page, Call for Paper draft, …)
Panel Proposal Submission Guidelines
The panel proposal shall be no more than 2 pages long, must conform to the ERAS 2025 paper formatting guidelines, and include the following information:
Topic for the panel discussion and a brief description.
Information on the organizers and the moderator (name, affiliation, e-mail address, and short biography)
Panelists’ (name, affiliation, and short biography)
Planned duration
Important Dates
Regular Paper (6-8 pages including references) Submissions Due
February 20 28, 2025 (AOE, firm)
Short/Position Paper (2-4 pages including references) Submissions Due
We invite contributions on topics including but not limited to:
General Understanding of Autonomy
Understanding the issues of autonomy, especially under the excess uncertainty of complex deployments (uncertainty and complexity permeate autonomous system design and operation - reliability requires that we address them)
Development of scientific foundations for autonomy that can drive the development of reliable systems
Application of the scientific method to autonomous systems experimentation and evaluation
Reproducibility, replicability, and generalizability of autonomous systems experiments
Research challenges and roadmaps for future development
Specification and User Needs
Defining, ensuring, and assessing system properties (safety, security, functionality, reliability, dependability, trustworthiness, …)
Stakeholder communication, expressing user needs and experiences, designer decisions and assumptions, test and evaluation results, operational expectations
Specification of requirements
System purpose, goals, and expectations as expressed by designers, testers, certification agents, users, customers, bystanders, etc.
Establishing trust and understanding of autonomous system behavior
Design and Systems Engineering for Reliability
System engineering and design principles (including reliable / dependable robot control architectures, systems that incorporate a range of artificial intelligence capabilities, and assurance for design as well as design for assurance)
Fault handling (including prediction, detection, isolation, identification, response, recovery, prevention, tolerance, removal) and runtime methods for recognition and recovery (monitoring, diagnosis, reonfigurability, verification, assurance) - runtime systems that provide resilience and dynamic functionality - autonomy that exists within the system to handle cases that fall outside nominal bounds)
Understanding and analysing trade-offs in system development (e.g. efficiency vs. transparency/verifiability/explainability; design-time vs. run-time; "Hoping for the best" vs. "Expecting the worst")
Assessing and Communicating Reliability
Test and evaluation techniques, principles, methods, tools, etc.
Verification and validation of autonomy (including techniques, processes, principles, methods, tools, verification of decision making, handling of unknown unknowns, uncertainty, and complexity)
Verification and validation of test and evaluation techniques, tools, etc.
Assurance and evidence (including types of evidence, confidence, evidence gathering, specific assurance cases for autonomous systems, structuring and design principles for assurance case development / integration of evidence into assurance)
Measurement and metrics
Mapping from evaluation results to operational performance
Context and impact of verification and evaluation on reliability
Runtime evaluation and assessment
Perceived and actual reliability
Reliability in Context
Licensure, regulatory approval, and certification
Standards and industry benchmarks
Legal and ethical considerations (including insurance and liability as well as government and public service considerations)
Industrial case studies and considerations
Life cycle considerations and methodologies (impact of reliability concerns on need identification, specification, design, development, evaluation and assessment of trustworthiness, operation, decommission)
Case studies (focused in specific application domains (e.g. healthcare diagnosis and intervention / autonomous driving / domestic robotics), specific environmental domains (e.g. space / maritime / volcanos / office buildings) and specific research domains (e.g. controls / perception))
Problem sets, reliability benchmarks and competitions
