Self-Adapting Software Systems

Software applications capable of adapting independently to different situations. The FAS* 2018 international conference, dedicated to this branch of information technology, has been organized by Fondazione Bruno Kessler in collaboration with the University of Trento and scheduled in Trento September 3-7. The conference will attract over 100 experts from all over the world who will discuss cutting-edge developments in this sector, increasingly relevant and promising for the future.

Antonio Bucchiarone (FBK), head of the organization of FAS * 2018 together with Alberto Montresor (University of Trento) and Elisabetta Di Nitto (Polytechnic of Milan), explains: “Modern software systems” are increasingly socio-technical, i.e. composed of heterogeneous agents that, although independent from each other, collaborate to achieve a common goal. Very often, unexpected changes occur compared to what had been theoretically estimated and we need models and algorithms able to adapt these systems to the new situation in order to reach the objectives anyway. This is one of the big challenges at this time. Take for instance the software used in the field of smart collective mobility in which travel solutions must continuously adapt to the needs of users and external factors that may cause the context to change, such as service disruptions, route changes and other unexpected events “.

The first day of FAS* 2018 will be dedicated to sector workshops while the plenary conference will start on Tuesday, September 4 at 8.45 am in FBK’s Sala Stringa Hall at Povo (Trento).

The program also includes three talks by experts in the sector on cross-disciplinary topics: Paola Inverardi (University of L’Aquila) who will offer an overview from an academic research perspective, Marco Barbina (Leonardo SpA) who will focus on the aspects of research and business development and Gábor Vásárhely (CollMot Robotics, Hungary) who will present a real case application of adaptive systems based on drones.

The FAS* 2018 conference combines the two main conferences on autonomous computing: SASO 2018 (IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems) and ICAC 2018 (IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing).