2nd Workshop on
Artificial Intelligence and
fOrmal VERification, Logic,
Automata, and sYnthesis

The increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence techniques in safety-critical systems, employed in real world scenarios, requires the design of reliable, robust and verifiable methodologies. AI systems employed in such applications need to provide formal guarantees about their safety, increasing the need for a synergic collaboration between the AI and Formal Methods scientific communities. Despite this increasing need, tools and methodologies integrating Formal Methods and Artificial Intelligence solutions have received relatively little attention.

The workshop is the main official initiative supported by OVERLAY, presenting the research group and its current results to the Italian AI scientific community. The event aims at establishing a stable, long-term scientific forum on relevant topics connected to the relationships between Artificial Intelligence and Formal Methods, by providing a stimulating environment where researchers can discuss about opportunities and challenges at the border of the two areas.

Important goals of the workshop are (i) to encourage the ongoing interaction between the FM and AI communities, (ii) to identify innovative tools and methodologies, and (iii) to elicit a discussion on open issues and new challenges.

Important dates

Invited talk

Verifying Autonomous Robots: Challenges and Reflections

Clare Dixon
University of Liverpool, UK

Shared with TIME 2020

Abstract

Autonomous robots such as robot assistants, healthcare robots, industrial robots, autonomous vehicles etc. are being developed to carry out a range of tasks in different environments.  The robots need to be able to act autonomously, choosing between a range of  activities. They may be operating close to or in collaboration with humans, or in environments hazardous to humans where the robot is hard to reach if it malfunctions. We need to ensure that such robots  are reliable, safe and trustworthy. In this talk I will discuss  experiences from several projects in developing and applying verification techniques to autonomous robotic systems. In particular we consider: a robot assistant in a domestic house, a robot co-worker for a cooperative manufacturing task, multiple robot systems and robots operating in hazardous environments.

About the speaker

Clare Dixon is Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. She has recently moved to Manchester after almost twenty years as an academic in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. Her research relates to the formal verification of systems and its application to areas such as autonomous systems, robotics, sensor systems, artificial intelligence and security. Recent research has focused on the verification of robot assistants, swarm robots and robotics in extreme environments. She also works on automated reasoning techniques for non-classical logics. She has been an investigator on twelve UKRI/EPSRC funded projects and her current projects include the Science of Sensor System Software, Future AI and Robotics Hub for Space (FAIR-SPACE), Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear (RAIN). She is a member of the BSI Standards Committee, AMT/010 Robotics.

Call for contributions

We elicit the contribution of extended abstracts (4 pages + references) discussing the interaction of Artificial Intelligence and Formal Methods. Invited talks will complement the presentations of contributed papers.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• automated reasoning
• automated planning and scheduling
• controller synthesis
• formal verification
• formal specification languages
• game theory
• hybrid and discrete systems
• logics
• reactive synthesis
• runtime verification and monitoring
• specification and verification of machine learning systems
• timed automata
• tools and applications

Contributed papers can present recent results at the border of the two fields, new research directions, challenges and perspectives. Presentation of results recently published in other scientific journals or conferences is welcome.

All papers will be included in the Proceedings of the event, published at CEUR Workshop Proceedings . CEUR WS proceedings are archival proceedings indexed by DBLP and Scopus.

Attendance and (no) fees

Due to the ongoing health crysis, OVERLAY 2020 will be a totally online event.

No fees are due for participation and attendance.

Submissions

Submitted papers should not exceed four (4) pages, not including references. Authors are asked to use the workshop's LaTeX style.

Submissions must be in PDF format and will be handled via the EasyChair Conference system at the following address: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=overlay20

Program Committee

Chairs

• Riccardo De Benedictis • ISTC-CNR, Rome, Italy
• Luca Geretti • University of Verona, Italy
• Andrea Micheli • Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy

PC Members

• Massimo Benerecetti • University of Naples Federico II
• Davide Bresolin • University of Padova
• Amedeo Cesta • ISTC-CNR, Rome
• Dario Della Monica • University of Udine
• Marco Faella • University of Naples Federico II
• Nicola Gigante • University of Udine
• Salvatore La Torre • University of Salerno
• Ivan Lanese • University of Bologna
• Federico Mari • University of Rome Foro Italico
• Angelo Montanari • University of Udine
• AndreA Orlandini • ISTC-CNR, Rome
• Adriano Peron • University of Naples Federico II
• Carla Piazza • University of Udine
• Pietro Sala • University of Verona
• Guido Sciavicco • University of Ferrara
• Stefano Tonetta • Fondazione Bruno Kessler
• Enrico Tronci • University of Rome La Sapienza
• Alessandro Umbrico • ISTC-CNR, Rome
• Tiziano Villa • University of Verona