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News
November 2026
Competition
ICST 2027 UAV Perception Testing Track is open for submissions
The lab launched the UAV Perception Testing Track in the Challenge Competition Track of ICST 2027. Participants build test generators that make an autonomous drone crash in NVIDIA Isaac Sim, and generators are ranked by the distinct failure mechanisms they trigger. Submission deadline: 15 January 2027 (AoE).
Details and launch video · Track website · GitHub
February 2026
Lab
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella appointed Head of the IDeaLS Lab at AI4I
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella has led the Intelligent Development and Large-Scale Systems (IDeaLS) Lab at the Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Industry (AI4I) since February 2026.
The lab focuses on the foundations and applications of intelligent, adaptive and trustworthy software systems for AI-enabled and cyber-physical systems.
2026
Recognition
National Scientific Habilitation in Computer Science
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella obtained the Italian National Scientific Habilitation (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale – ASN), I Fascia, for 01/B1 – Informatica.
The qualification recognizes scientific maturity and research contributions across Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, intelligent software systems, Data Science, and autonomous cyber-physical systems.
Official ASN Result
July 2026
Publication
Paper accepted at ESEM 2026
The paper “Characterising Meeting Practices in Software Engineering Teams: A Mixed-Methods Study of Perceptions, Objective Patterns, and Impacts” has been accepted in the Technical Track of the International Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2026).
2026
Publication
Paper accepted in Information and Software Technology
The paper “The Role of Road Features and Vehicle Dynamics in Cost-Effective Autonomous Vehicles Safety Testing: Insights from Instance Space Analysis” has been accepted for publication in Information and Software Technology.
The research investigates how road characteristics and vehicle dynamics can inform more effective and cost-efficient safety testing for autonomous vehicles.
2026
Publication
Paper accepted at ICPC
The paper “Understanding CI/CD Workflow Runs Through Interactive and Animated Visualizations” has been accepted at the International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC 2026).
The work investigates new ways of helping developers understand complex Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery workflows through interactive visualization.
February 2026
Event
CHOOSE Forum 2026 at Software Engineering 2026
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella co-organized the CHOOSE Forum “Software Engineering, AI & Scientific Computing: A Forum on Industry and Academic Synergies, Reproducibility, and Science Challenges”, held in Bern on 25 February 2026 within Software Engineering 2026.
2026
Funding
Innosuisse Innovation Cheque project awarded
The project “mina App Gesundheitsreport / mina App Health Report”, led by startup founder Michèle André, was awarded Innosuisse Innovation Cheque funding.
The project explores AI-driven cycle data analytics to support women’s health and well-being.
2026
Recognition
Research contributions recognized among the Most Cited Papers in Software Engineering
Several research contributions co-authored by Dr. Panichella have been included in the compilation “Most Cited Papers in Software Engineering 2013–2023”, highlighting the sustained impact and visibility of the research.
2026
Teaching
New courses in Spring 2026
Two new interdisciplinary courses started in Spring 2026: “DevOps for Cyber-Physical Systems” and “Autonomous Systems in Practice: Technology, Law, and Society”.
2025
Award
Most Influential Paper Award at ICSME 2025
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella received the Most Influential Paper Award at the International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME 2025) for “How Can I Improve My App? Classifying User Reviews for Software Maintenance and Evolution”, originally published at ICSME 2015.
The award recognizes the long-term scientific impact of this work.
2025
Award
Best Reviewer Award at FSE 2025
Dr. Sebastiano Panichella received the Best Reviewer Award at the ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2025) for contributions to the scientific reviewing process.
2025
Publication
New Book on DevOps for Cyber-Physical Systems
Dr. Panichella edited the book “Roadmap for DevOps in Cyber-physical Systems: Challenges and Future Directions”.
The book brings together research perspectives on the challenges and future directions involved in developing, testing, deploying, and operating complex cyber-physical systems.
Publications
October 2026
Award
Third place at the first Hack Apertus hackathon
Team INVINCIBLES, with Prakash Aryan, Kaushik Raghupathruni, Vilas Harapanahalli and Vaibhav Motwani, took third place at the first Hack Apertus on-site hackathon in Liebefeld (19 October 2026).
Their project, Parlamentsthemen, uses the Swiss open language model Apertus to classify affairs from Swiss parliaments by topic.
June 2026
Talk
Two papers presented at ICRA 2026
Prakash Aryan presented two recent works at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2026) in Vienna: “Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Safe Autonomous Driving Under Pedestrian Behavioral Uncertainty” at the 8th Long-term Human Motion Prediction Workshop and “MR-SLAM: Immersive Spatial Supervision for Multi-Robot Mapping via Mixed Reality” at the MM-SpatialAI Workshop.
2026
Publication
Paper accepted in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
The paper “Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Precision Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Control: Adaptive Transformers with Safety Guarantees” has been accepted for publication in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence.
The work contributes to the development of AI-based approaches for reliable and safety-aware autonomous UAV control.
2026
Competition
ICST 2026 and SBFT 2026 Tool Competitions
The lab co-organizes the Self-Driving Car and UAV testing tool competitions at the International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2026, Daejeon) and the International Workshop on Search-Based and Fuzz Testing (SBFT 2026, Rio de Janeiro), with Prakash Aryan and Christian Birchler as Tool Competition Co-chairs.
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Awards and Recognitions
3rd Place, Hack Apertus Hackathon, Liebefeld
Prakash Aryan and team INVINCIBLES (Kaushik Raghupathruni, Vilas Harapanahalli, Vaibhav Motwani) took third place at the first Hack Apertus on-site hackathon with Parlamentsthemen, which uses the Swiss open language model Apertus to classify affairs from Swiss parliaments by topic.