CfP: 43rd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS '22)

CALL FOR PAPERS

43rd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS)

December 5-8, 2022  |  Houston, TX  |  http://2022.rtss.org/

Important Dates

RTSS Papers

• Submission Deadline: Thu May 26, 2022
• Rebuttal Period: Fri July 15, 2022 to Thu July 21, 2022
• Paper Notification: Fri August 5, 2022

Premier conference in the field of real-time systems, and is a venue for researchers and practitioners to showcase innovations covering all aspects of real-time systems including theory, design, analysis, implementation, evaluation and experience. RTSS’22, celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the event, continues the trend of making RTSS an expansive and inclusive event, striving to embrace new and emerging areas of real-time systems research.

RTSS’22 welcomes submissions of high-quality, original research papers related to both real-time systems’ theory and practice. Submissions can go to either the real-time systems track (Track 1) or the design and applications track (Track 2) which covers Cyber-Physical Systems, HW-SW integration and system-level design, and Internet of Things (IoT). To be in scope, ALL submissions must address some form of real-time requirements such as deadlines, response times or delay/latency. All accepted papers will appear in the main program and proceedings.

RTSS especially welcomes new and emerging topics provided that they address some aspects of real-time requirements as stated above. Such topics may include machine learning techniques for the design and analysis of real-time systems, system design approaches for achieving real-time machine learning, resource management in autonomous systems, system-level solutions for real-time applications exploiting domain-specific accelerators, etc.

Note the above list of topics is intended only as a rough guide and should not be understood as an exclusive list. Papers breaking new ground, departing from established subfields, or challenging the status quo are most welcome and are encouraged.

Empirical survey-based research focused on the real-time systems field is also welcome. This type of research uses surveys, questionnaires, interviews, use-cases or other empirical techniques to obtain information about the past / current / future state of play in the research, design, development, verification, validation, and deployment of real-time systems. (Note literature surveys that classify, review, and summarize existing research papers are not considered empirical research and are not in scope of the conference).

All accepted papers will appear in the main program and proceedings. A selection of papers will receive recognition as outstanding papers, and will be highlighted as such in the proceedings. Best paper and best student paper awards will be presented at the conference, along with an award for the best presentation. (Note that submissions are eligible for the best student paper award provided that the first author is a student as of the submission deadline).

Track 1: Real-Time Systems Track

The objective of this track is to promote cutting-edge research in real-time systems, especially new and emerging topics. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following: operating systems, networks, middleware, compilers, tools, scheduling, QoS support, resource management, testing and debugging, design and verification, modeling, WCET analysis, performance analysis, fault tolerance, security, and system experimentation and deployment experiences.

Track 2: Design and Applications Track

This track aims to highlight the newest research achievements in designs, implementations and applications that must attend to some aspects of real-time requirements. Continuing with the success in previous years, the track will particularly focus on four specialized areas:

Cyber-Physical Systems

CPS applications (such as transportation, healthcare, industrial control, etc.) interact with the physical worlds. Hence, they do possess real-time requirements. Papers that identify scientific foundations and technologies that advance the state-of-the-art for CPS are welcome. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) foundations of CPS, design methods, simulation/emulation for CPS, tool chains, CPS architectures, security and privacy, hardware/software compositions that include physical components, performance analysis, robustness and safety, and analysis techniques and tools especially those with multiple temporal and spatial scales.

HW-SW Integration and System–Level Design

This area focuses on design methodologies and tools for hardware/software integration and co-design of modern embedded systems for real-time applications. Topics include (but are not limited to) architecture description languages and tools, hardware architectures, design space exploration, synthesis and optimization. Of special interest are SoC design for real-time applications, special-purpose functional units, specialized memory structures, multi-core chips and communication aspects, FPGA simulation and prototyping, software simulation and compilation for novel architectures and applications, as well as power, thermal, timing and predictability analyses.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Grand challenges in IoT include extremely constrained resources (energy supply, storage and computational power) in IoT devices, unprecedented scalability requirements as well as uncertain dynamics in their operating environments. Submissions that build on solid theoretical foundations, present empirical development, and experimental evaluations for empowering IoT applications with real-time requirements are welcome.

Paper Submissions

Submitted papers must describe original work not previously published or concurrently submitted elsewhere. Papers based on previous work presented at workshops are eligible for submission – if the workshop paper has a digital object identifier (DOI) then the submission must contain at least 30% new material. All submitted papers must comply with the double-blind submission requirements. The main body of each submitted paper is limited to 11 pages of technical content with additional pages permitted for bibliography only. Submissions must be formatted according to IEEE conference paper guidelines.

Submission

All submitted papers must comply with the double-blind submission requirements and the page limit requirements.

Submit your manuscript here!

Papers must be submitted by the submission deadline (Thursday, May 26, 2022, Anywhere On Earth) using the above RTSS 2022 submission site. The submission deadline is firm: late submissions will not be accepted under any circumstance, and the deadline will not be extended.

Submitted papers must describe original work not previously published or concurrently submitted elsewhere. Papers based on previous work presented at workshops are eligible for submission – if the workshop paper has a digital object identifier (DOI) then the submission must contain at least 30% new material.

All submissions will be checked using IEEE CrossCheck plagiarism detection software (iThenticate) and authors’ names checked against the IEEE Prohibited Authors List. Although authors will choose which one of the two tracks to submit papers to, a paper may be redirected to a more appropriate track; the authors will be informed if this happens.

Page Limit Requirements

The main body of each submitted paper is limited to 11 pages of technical content with additional pages permitted for the bibliography only. Submissions must be formatted according to IEEE conference paper guidelines. The Track Chairs reserve the right to access paper sources (e.g. Latex, Word, etc.) in order to check that formatting guidelines have been adhered to.

Note that once a paper is accepted or shepherded, the page limit will be increased to 12 pages of technical content, again with additional pages permitted for the bibliography and acknowledgments only. The additional space this provides must only be used for the purpose of addressing the reviewer’s comments; other unsolicited additions are not permitted.

Double-Blind Submission Requirements

DO NOT identify the author(s) by their name(s) or affiliation(s) anywhere on the manuscript or abstract. Reference the author(s)’ own previous work in bibliographic citations in the third person. Avoid the use of “omitted for blind review” in the bibliography section. Make sure the PDF metadata does not contain the author information. Do not include any acknowledgments in the submission. See more details on double-blind submission requirements. Note that the shepherding phase for submissions, if any, will be single-blind.

Conflict of Interest (CoI)

If a TPC member has a CoI with any author of a submitted paper, that TPC member will neither review the submission nor take part in any of its deliberations. For these purposes, a TPC member is identified to have a conflict with a paper, if the member and any of the authors:

Had at any time a supervisor/PhD-student relationship.

• Are both from the same institution, or have worked at the same institution in the past 3 years.
• Are currently working together on a research paper or project, or have done so during the past 3 years.
• Are related, or are close personal friends.
• Are in some form of financial relationship, or have been at some point during the past 3 years.
• Any other reason or circumstance that creates a risk that professional judgment may be unduly influenced.

Authors will be asked during the submission process to identify TPC members with whom they have CoIs as well as the type of CoIs. Additionally, CoIs are also indicated by TPC members during the paper bidding process. If the authors wish to identify any exceptional CoIs (outside the normal scope of CoIs defined above), then they need to notify the Program Chair before the submission deadline (see Unwanted Reviewers below).

Unwanted Reviewers

Authors of papers may optionally indicate TPC members that they have a CoI with that is outside of the normal scope of CoIs (see definition above). This information, including proper reasons for the additional CoIs, must be communicated directly to the Program Chair in writing prior to the submission deadline. These PC members will not normally be eligible to review the authors’ paper(s). Note the final decision on whether to make this restriction rests with the Program Chair. Note this process should not be used to indicate normal Conflicts of Interest (CoI) – see above.

Author Rebuttal

The peer-review process for RTSS incorporates a rebuttal phase. After the TPC members complete their initial reviews, the contact author for each submitted paper will be provided with the set of reviews for that submission. Each review might further include a short list of questions for the authors in a clearly marked section.

Authors have 5 working days to prepare and submit a rebuttal answer through the submission system. The rebuttal is strictly for responding to factual errors and misunderstandings in the reviews, and answering questions raised in the corresponding section of the reviews. The authors are not allowed to add new material/results to the submission.

Note that failing to provide a rebuttal does not lead to automatic paper rejection. Nevertheless, authors are encouraged to address questions by the reviewers to the best of their ability. TPC members are required to consider the rebuttal answer in all subsequent deliberations.

The rebuttal period is from Friday, July 15 to Thursday, July 21, 2022.

Re-submissions

By submitting a paper, the authors agree and confirm that:

In the event that the paper has previously been submitted to a conference or journal, and received reviews prior to rejection or being withdrawn, then a genuine effort has been made to address the reviewers’ concerns. (Note, re-submission of an essentially unchanged paper is not generally acceptable. If there are circumstances where you believe this is appropriate, then you must contact the Program Chair prior to the submission deadline.)

Shepherding

RTSS 2022 may include a single-blind shepherding process for some of the submitted papers. Details about the shepherding process will be announced to related authors after the notification date.

Submitting a Paper

• Before submitting your paper, please check that:
• The paper is formatted according to the IEEE conference paper guidelines.
• The paper complies with the page limit requirements (described at the top of this webpage).
• The file that you will upload is a PDF.
• You know which of the two tracks (described in the Call for Papers) to submit the paper to.
• The paper complies with the instructions for double blind submission.

By submitting a paper, all the authors agree and confirm that:

• Neither this paper nor a version similar to it is under review or will be submitted elsewhere before the notification by RTSS 2022.
• If accepted, the authors will submit a final version of the paper by the camera-ready deadline.
• If accepted, at least one author will register for the conference by the special registration deadline for authors, and present the paper at the conference.
• In the event that the paper has previously been submitted to a conference or journal, and received reviews prior to rejection or being withdrawn, then a genuine effort has been made to address the reviewers’ concerns. (Note, re-submission of an essentially unchanged paper is not generally acceptable. If there are circumstances where you believe this is appropriate, then you must contact the Program Chair prior to the submission deadline).

Note: you may revise your submission at any time up until the submission deadline (Thursday, May 26, 2022, Anywhere On Earth). No changes or extensions will be permitted after that time.