Autonomous agents is a well-established area that has been researched for decades, both from a design and implementation viewpoint. Nonetheless, the application of agents in real-world scenarios has largely been adopted in applications which are primarily software based, and remains limited in applications which involve physical interaction. In parallel, robots are no longer used only in tightly constrained industrial applications but are instead being applied in an increasing number of domains, ranging from robotic assistants to search and rescue, where the working environment is both dynamic and underspecified, and may involve interactions between multiple robots and humans.

This presents significant challenges to traditional software engineering methodologies. Increased autonomy is an important route to enabling robotic applications to function in these environments, and autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are a promising approach to their engineering. As autonomy and interaction increases, the engineering of reliable behaviour becomes more challenging (both in robotic applications and in more traditional autonomous agent settings), and so there is a need for research into new approaches to verification and validation that can be integrated in the engineering lifecycle of these systems.

AREA 2024 aims to bring together researchers from the autonomous agents and the robotics communities, since combining knowledge from these two research areas may lead to innovative approaches that solve complex problems related to the verification and validation of autonomous robotic systems. Therefore, we encourage submissions that combine agents, robots, software engineering, and verification, but we also welcome papers focused on one of these areas, as long as their applicability to the other areas is explicit.

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:

• Full paper - a paper describing technically sound, innovative ideas that can advance the engineering/reliability of agents and robots; an application/case study paper, with emphasis on robotic applications where agents techniques have been applied; a survey paper on one of the topics of interest.
• Short paper - a position paper describing relevant questions and issues that participants feel should be addressed; a demo paper describing a demonstration of an agent/robotic application, system or tool; a new idea in the field which is not ready for publication as a regular paper but would benefit from discussion.
• ECAI 2024 review transfer - resubmission of papers rejected from the main conference, decision will be made purely on the basis of the reviews written for the main conference and how well the paper aligns with the scope of the workshop. Please submit a PDF as supplementary material containing all of the ECAI 2024 reviews associated with your paper. The initial submission can be in ECAI's format or Springer LNCS format. However, the camera-ready version to be submitted later on will have to be in LNCS format for it to be published.

Full-length research papers must not exceed sixteen (16) pages single column excluding references and appendices and short papers must not exceed eight (8) pages single column excluding references and appendices. All submissions must be in English and PDF format. Each submission will receive at least three single-blind reviews. All papers should be original and not be submitted elsewhere. The review process is single-blind: submissions should not be blind, reviewers will be.

Committees

Program Committee

• Tobias Ahlbrecht, Clausthal University of Technology (Germany)
• Gleifer Vaz Alves, Federal University of Technology – Paraná (Brazil)
• Mehrnoosh Askarpour, McMaster University / GM (Canada)
• Francesco Belardinelli, Imperial College London (UK)
• Louise A. Dennis, The University of Manchester (UK)
• Babak Esfandiari, Carleton University (Canada)
• Marie Farrell, The University of Manchester (UK)
• Jomi F. Hübner, UFSC (Brazil)
• Erez Karpas, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Israel)
• Charles Lesire, ONERA (French Aerospace Lab) (France)
• Livia Lestingi, Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
• Matt Luckcuck, University of Nottingham (UK)
• Vadim Malvone, Telecom Paris (France)
• Stefania Monica, Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy)
• Chunyan Mu, University of Aberdeen (UK)
• Viviana Mascardi, Genoa University (Italy)
• Eva Onaindia, Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain)
• Fabio Papacchini, Lancaster University Leipzig (Germany)
• Pedro Ribeiro, University of York (UK)
• Christos Tsigkanos, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Bettina Könighofer, Graz University of Technology
• Stefano Tedeschi, Università della Valle d'Aosta - Université de la Vallée d'Aoste
• Christian Colombo, University of Malta
• Ana Paula Rocha, LIACC, University of Porto
• Claudio Menghi, University of Bergamo
• Daniela Briola, University of Milano Bicocca

Organizing Committee

• Angelo Ferrando, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)
• Rafael C. Cardoso, University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom)

Invited Speakers

• TBA
• TBA

Publication

The proceedings of the workshop will be published with CCIS (https://www.springer.com/series/7899). Formatting guidelines should follow LNCS style: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines

Venue

The AREA workshop is going to be an in-person event (following ECAI 2024 guidelines). At least one author of each accepted paper has to register to the workshop (via ECAI 2024 website, links and fees will be made available soon).

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to area.workshop.info@gmail.com