We are excited to share that our researchers Paulo Canelas, PhD student, and Alcides Fonseca, integrated member, in collaboration with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University, had their latest research accepted at the International Conference in Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2024, one of the most prestigious conferences in robotics (Core A*).

Their paper, “Is it a Bug? Understanding Physical Unit Mismatches in Robot Software,” explores how mismatches in physical units — like adding meters to seconds — can lead to dangerous and unexpected behaviors of the robotic systems. Their study found that developers intentionally introduce these mismatches and analysis tools used to detect such mismatches must be aware of the specific context and coding patterns in which the robotic system operates to avoid false positive detections.

Those interested can find more details in the full paper here.