4th WAFERS Workshop 

@ ISSRE 2023

News and Updates

Workshop Abstract

In the past decade, technology has experienced a rapid expansion, permeating various aspects of our lives. From enhancing our daily experiences to providing entertainment, the physical world has become intertwined with technology and connectivity. One significant area of interest for the scientific community is the development of emerging technologies like autonomous transportation, smart cities, and home and industry automation. These technologies fall under the umbrella of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), which seamlessly integrate the physical aspects of a system with its cyber components, resulting in new and intelligent capabilities for physical systems. CPSs encompass a wide range of systems, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0.

As these systems evolve, they become increasingly complex and heterogeneous, integrating previously separate systems and incorporating diverse design solutions such as off-the-shelf software and loosely-integrated composable services. This complexity necessitates innovative approaches for assessing dependability and establishing certification processes. There is a growing need for efficient, automated, and ideally continuous assessment and certification solutions to address the challenges arising from the interplay between real-time, security, safety, and verification and validation (V&V) aspects of CPSs. These challenges become particularly prominent when introducing networked, autonomous, and cooperative functionalities.

To tackle these issues, we are organizing a workshop dedicated to the validation and verification of future Cyber-Physical Systems. The workshop aims to explore the intricacies and interdependencies associated with real-time capabilities, security measures, safety considerations, and the certification, verification, and validation processes that emerge when incorporating networked, autonomous, and cooperative functionalities into CPSs. By bringing together experts and researchers from various domains, we seek to foster discussions and develop new solutions that address the complexities and unique demands of these futuristic CPSs

Program

The WAFERS Workshop will take place in the morning of Monday, October, 9th in Florence, Italy.

There will be two separate sessions, 90 mins each.

Session 1 (8.30 - 10.00)

Opening and Welcome from WAFERS chairs (10 mins). Time slot for papers includes Q&A.

Keynote: Verification and Validation of Systems Engineering Models and Modeling Languages - Zoltan Micskei (60 mins: 45-50 mins + 10-15 mins of Q&A)

Model-based development is an often-used technique in the context of cyber-physical systems. Systems engineering modeling languages, like SysML, offer many benefits, including early verification and validation of key system behavior. However, in safety-critical systems requiring strong guarantees, V&V needs to be holistically applied to both the models and the modeling tools at multiple meta-levels. This talk will present results on the V&V of the engineering models and the modeling languages used to create those models.

J1C2 Paper Presentation: A Model-Driven Approach for the Management and Enforcement of Coding Conventions - Elder Rodrigues; José D’Abruzzo Pereira; Leonardo Montecchi (20 mins)

Session 2 (10.30 - 12.00)

Research Paper Presentation: The GOLDS satellite constellation: preparatory works for a model-based performability analysis - Francesco Mariotti, Paolo Lollini and Fátima Mattiello-Francisco (20 mins)

Research Paper Presentation: Towards Robust Visual Odometry Systems Against Camera Lens Failures - Lorenzo Sarti, Hudson Bruno, Tommaso Puccetti, Esther Colombini and Andrea Ceccarelli (20 mins)

Research Paper Presentation: Validating the BIECO Security Evaluation Methodology within a Smart Grid Monitoring SW - Irene Bicchierai, Enrico Araniti, Sara Nieves Matheu-García and Juan Francisco Martínez Gil (20 mins)

Research Paper Presentation: Modeling Moving Target Defense strategies and attacks with SAN and ADVISE - Francesco Mariotti, Lorenzo Manetti and Paolo Lollini (20 mins)

Concluding Remarks (10 mins)

Organization

Workshop Chairs

Technical Program Committee

Main Topics

The primary objective of the WAFERS workshop is to facilitate discussions on pioneering approaches for assessing the dependability of complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and to encourage their practical implementation in real-world systems through collaborative efforts between industry and academia. The workshop aims to serve as a platform for researchers to exchange ideas, present real-world challenges, and propose innovative solutions pertaining to the assessment of intricate systems. By fostering these discussions, WAFERS seeks to promote the adoption of novel ideas and provide a forum for researchers to share their expertise in the validation and verification of future Cyber-Physical Systems.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

Submission Guidelines

IMPORTANT!!! At least one author of every accepted paper is expected to register for the workshop and present the work. ISSRE23 will be an in-person event, therefore we expect speakers to physically appear at the conference and at the workshop.

Paper Format

Regular (Research) Paper: Authors are invited to submit high quality unpublished research work on WAFERS' topics. All the accepted papers will be included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Papers must be written in English and be formatted according to the IEEE authoring guidelines (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html). Full papers should not exceed eight pages (seven pages plus one page for references) in IEEE style. 

Emerging Ideas Paper: Authors are invited to submit short papers containing new ideas or even unexpected or negative results on WAFERS' topics. All the accepted papers will be included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Papers must be written in English and be formatted according to the IEEE authoring guidelines (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html). Full papers should not exceed two pages (including references) in IEEE style. 

Journal-First Papers: this year WAFERS welcomes “Journal-First Papers”, that is, recently published peer-reviewed journal articles related to the topics of the workshop. These papers will NOT appear in proceedings but will offer a nice opportunity for researchers to share their findings that were already used for journal submissions. Journal articles should have been published not before June 1st, 2021 to be considered in this session.

Submission Links

Regular (Research) Papers: Paper submission will be done electronically through EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=issre23), selecting the 4th Workshop on Validation and Verification of Future Cyber-physical Systems. Authors are required to indicate the category as part of the paper’s title.

Emerging Ideas Papers: Paper submission will be done electronically through EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=issre23), selecting the 4th Workshop on Validation and Verification of Future Cyber-physical Systems. Authors are required to indicate the category as part of the paper’s title.

Journal-First Papers. Researchers interested in presenting their work in this session, must send email to the program chairs, containing: a maximum of 250-words abstract motivating the relevance of the paper to WAFERS, ii) a link (if open access) or a copy of the refereed journal article, and iii) the name of the presenter to the conference.

Important Dates