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                         CALL FOR PAPERS
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                            ETFA'2003
               9th IEEE International Conference on
           Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation
             September 16-19, 2003, Lisbon, Portugal
                 http://www.uninova.pt/etfa2003/

                       Special session on 
                 Distributed Real-Time Computing


        The special session will be part of the Track on 
            Real-Time and (Networked) Embedded Systems   


Most modern automation devices used in industrial fields can support some 
local processing. Their degree of 'autonomous behavior' has increased quite 
considerably over the last decades thanks to advances in microprocessor and 
embedded electronics. This has led to a distribution of intelligence in the 
automation structure, from centralized controllers to fully distributed 
smart sensors and actuators.

The development of such computer-based infrastructure to modern industrial 
automation systems has become highly complex, since it tends to be large, 
distributed, containing highly dynamic and adaptive behavior, having a long 
lifetime, and involving complex timing constraints. Conventional techniques 
for developing those computer-based systems are not able to deal with such 
ever increasing complexity, mainly due to their poor abstraction mechanisms. 
Therefore, new techniques are required. Among these, the object-oriented 
paradigm, and in particular distributed real-time objects, has gained a 
lot of interest. 

For this special session papers are solicited which are concerned with: 

- Object-oriented modeling and design of distributed real-time systems.
- Middleware/language support for distributed real-time computing.
- Architectures to support networks of distributed sensors and actuators. 
- Scheduling strategies for distributed real-time systems.

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ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The ETFA conference series is the largest IEEE event dedicated to 
Industrial and Factory  Automation, with the focus on the newly emerging
areas of technology, and  actual and potential applications.

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MAJOR ETFA TOPICS:
- Information Technology in Industrial and Factory Automation
- Industrial and Factory Communication Systems
- Real-Time and (Networked) Embedded Systems
- Intelligent Sensors and Sensor Networks
- Automated Manufacturing Systems and Development Methodology
- Automation Systems and Control
- Computational Intelligence in Industrial and Factory Automation
- Intelligent Robots & Systems
- Information Technology in Enterprise Integration

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AUTHOR'S SCHEDULE:
Authors should contact the Special Session Organizer

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SESSION ORGANIZER
Carlos E. Pereira, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul 
(cpereira@eletro.ufrgs.br)