SAVE THE DATE  - The International Workshop on Autonomous Systems Safety (IWASS) makes its way to the United States!

We're thrilled to announce our collaboration with the 71st Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS 2025).

RAMS will take place on January 26-30, in Miramar Beach, Florida, USA. IWASS 2025 will be held at the same location on January 25th and 26th.

Stay tuned for more information!

Recent Advances in Autonomous Systems: Safety & Risk Implications

IWASS 2024 was organized by the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Institute of Industrial Automation and Software Engineering of the University of Stuttgart.

The fifth IWASS took in Cracow, Poland, prior to the 34rd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2024). The workshop gathered 30 participants from eleven countries and twenty-five organizations around the globe.

Three recurring topics were identified throughout the discussions at IWASS 2024. These topics provide a common thread across different systems and use cases explored: the impact of operational requirements on system design, the role of regulations and societal perception of risk in the development of new technologies, and the evolution of human-system interactions. 

Stay tuned for IWASS 2024 Proceedings!

The Safety Case for Autonomous Systems

IWASS 2023 was organized by the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Institute of Industrial Automation and Software Engineering of the University of Stuttgart.

The fourth IWASS took place in Southampton, United Kingdom, prior to the 33rd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2023). IWASS 2023 was attended by thirty-nine in-person and online participants from eight countries and thirty organizations from academia, industry, and government.

With the increasing use of safety cases for autonomous systems safety, IWASS 2023 discussions revolved around safety assurance processes, the challenges in constructing defensible safety cases, the role of academia, industry, applied researchers, and policymakers have in the discussion surrounding the use of safety cases as credible safety assurance frameworks.

An IWASS Panel featuring our discussions was held during ESREL 2023. We thank our panelists and participants who enriched the discussions, and we look forward to continuing them in the future.

IWASS 2022 was organized by the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

The third IWASS was held before the 32nd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2022) on August 28th in Dublin, Ireland. The workshop gathered thirty participants from twenty organizations from ten countries around the globe.

Discussions at IWASS 2022 were distributed over three days and included domain experts’ presentations and discussion sessions. The goal was to create cross-disciplinary discussions and solutions related to fundamental challenges associated with the Safety, Reliability and Security of autonomous systems.

In addition, a panel session at the European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2022) discussed the workshop's main conclusions and additional points with a larger audience.

IWASS 2021 was organized by the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Initially planned as an in-person event in 2020 at UCLA, IWASS 2021 switched to an online event in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions. IWASS 2021 was held online on April 20th, 21st, and 28th 2021. The invitation-only events gathered forty-nine participants from thirty-nine organizations and nine countries.

At the second IWASS, discussions were organized around the presentations of five domain experts and four parallel sessions focused on specific topics. The four topics discussed in dedicated breakout sessions included:

1. Demonstrating Safety of Autonomous Systems;

2. Verification & Validation, Risk Acceptance; Human on the Loop;

3. The Role of Humans in Autonomous Systems Operations; Modeling and Simulation for Understanding Complexity and Cascading Failures; and

4. Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics in Resilient Autonomous Systems.

The issues discussed at IWASS extended beyond the above-mentioned topics, including the need for a multidisciplinary view, international cooperation, and assessment of the impact of possible regional differences.

The First International Workshop on Autonomous Systems Safety (IWASS) was organized by the Department of Marine Technology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

IWASS 2019 took place in Trondheim, Norway, from 11th to 13th of March 2019. The participation in the workshop was by invitation only and included forty-seven subject matter experts from Europe, Asia, Australia, and the U.S., working in both academia and industry.

Presentations and discussions at the first IWASS were guided by a set of interdisciplinarity topics on autonomous system Safety, Reliability and Security, namely: (i) Interaction of software, hardware, and human operators; (ii) assessment methods for safety, reliability and security; (iii) cyber security; (iv) legal and regulatory aspects; and (v) ethical and social aspects.

The challenges presented above are interdisciplinary in nature and require a collective effort by the research communities to categorize and classify risks and conceptualize and develop mitigating solutions.