Rice to host meeting on the future of computer modeling and simulation May 7-8

Rice to host meeting on the future of computer modeling and simulation May 7-8

Rice University will host the Hybrid Modeling Languages workshop “HyML@Rice” May 7-8 to share technologies that are shaping the future of computer modeling and simulation. The meeting will provide a forum for presenting state-of-the-art research related to the hybrid systems modeling and simulation, validated numerics and formal semantics.

The invitational meeting will bring together internationally renowned academic and industry experts to facilitate collaborations on research and education.

Walid Taha's research helps with the design of robots and other cyber-physical systems. Credit: Joachim Brink

“These methods are essential to ensure correctness and robustness in simulation results for the development of next-generation innovations such as robotics and autonomous vehicles,” said meeting chair Walid Taha, professor of computer science at Halmstad University. “Advances in this area are revolutionizing the way we use computers to build cyber-physical systems.”

Taha, a part-time full professor of computer science at Rice and director of the Effective Modeling Research Group, a multi-university initiative sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Swedish KK Foundation, said the meeting will highlight the importance of research on modeling and simulation of cyber-physical systems, including the development of the Acumen modeling language.

“There is a pervasive need in industry for methods that can simultaneously model both continuous and discrete behaviors, particularly in situations where there is uncertainty around some model parameters,” he said. “These are the most challenging features of cyber-physical systems. The technologies being developed by this research community precisely address these challenges and are already beginning to have a profound impact on how we teach and practice science and engineering.”

Speakers and their affiliated institutions or companies include Aaron Ames, Texas A&M University; Molham Aref, LogicBlox; Ferenc Bartha, Rice; Albert Cheng, University of Houston; Jyotirmoy Deshmukh, Toyota; Franz Franchetti, Carnegie Mellon University; Walid Gomaa, Egypt Japan University of Science and Technology; Gopal Gupta, University of Texas at Dallas; Vlad Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso; Eugenio Moggi, University of Genoa; Roland Philippsen and Gabor Simko, both of Google; Sriram Sankaranarayanan, University of Colorado; and Taha.

The workshop will be held in Duncan Hall, Room 1070. For the times and titles of presentations, see the workshop program. Members of the Rice community who wish to attend should RSVP to Belia Martinez in the Department of Computer Science.