Call for Papers

Scope of the Conference

The IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS) is the premier conference in the field of real-time systems. It serves as a platform for researchers and practitioners to showcase innovations covering all aspects of real-time systems, including theory, design, analysis, implementation, verification, evaluation, and experience. RTSS’25, the 46th edition, continues the tradition of embracing new and emerging areas of real-time systems research.

Tracks

RTSS’25 welcomes submissions of high-quality, original research papers related to both real-time systems theory and practice. Manuscripts may be submitted to either of the following tracks:

Track 1: Real-Time Systems and Foundations

This track focuses on the practical and theoretical foundations that enable predictable timing in computing systems.

• Core topics: Real-time operating systems components (kernels, hypervisors, middleware, runtime environments), schedulability analysis and scheduling algorithms, theoretical foundations, verification methods.
• Timing analysis: Worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis, measurement-based timing analysis (MBTA).
• Other areas: Real-time and time-sensitive networking, timing-predictable hardware architectures, modeling and analysis of stochastic real-time systems, statistical and empirical approaches to timing predictability.
• Fault tolerance and security: Real-time systems under adversarial conditions (e.g., timing-based side-channel attacks), secure communication in time-sensitive networks.
• Cross-layer predictability: Hardware, operating systems, and applications.
• Enabling technologies: Compiler techniques, system synthesis, model-driven engineering, applied formal methods (model checking, proof-based verification).
• Experimental contributions: System designs, case studies, and experience reports.
• Artificial Intelligence for Real-Time Systems Foundations: Use of machine learning and other AI techniques to advance real-time scheduling, timing analysis, resource management, and system optimization under timing constraints. (Focus is on AI for real-time systems foundations, not real-time systems for AI, which is Track 2).

Track 2: Design and Applications

This track focuses on real-time systems in a broader systems context, emphasizing novel research on designs, implementations, and applications. It explores how tools and techniques are adapted and applied to specific application domains.

• Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS): Safety-critical, autonomous, and robotic systems interacting with the physical world. Includes theoretical foundations, design methodologies, simulation and emulation, tool chains, architectures, secure CPS, performance analysis, robustness, safety, certification, and hardware/software co-design.
• Real-Time System Design for Artificial Intelligence: Practical implementation of AI components (perception, planning, decision-making) in latency-sensitive and resource-constrained environments. Design of real-time systems to deploy AI under real-time constraints. Topics include system design, frameworks, resource management, hardware acceleration, and case studies. Also covers AI safety in CPS: verification/validation of learning-enabled components, runtime monitoring, safe exploration, explainability, and robustness.
• HW-SW Integration and System-Level Design: Methodologies and tools for hardware/software integration and co-design in modern embedded systems. Includes architecture description languages, hardware architectures, design space exploration, synthesis, optimization. Focus on SoC design for real-time workloads, custom memory hierarchies, multi-core architectures, communication infrastructure. Emerging trends like RISC-V, AI/ML hardware accelerators, and chiplet-based design are of strong interest.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Challenges such as resource constraints, scalability demands, and dynamic environments. Focus on enabling real-time capabilities in IoT applications (distributed sensing/control, reliable communication, low-latency processing). Edge computing, fog computing, and AI-at-the-edge for responsiveness. Application domains include smart cities, industrial IoT, smart healthcare. 5G/6G for real-time and ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and in-network computing.

Timing Requirements

To be in scope, ALL submissions must explicitly address some form of real-time requirements / constraints.

Common examples include (but are not limited to) deadlines, response-time bounds, thresholds on acceptable tail latencies (as found in service level agreements - SLAs), as well as statistical and stochastic notions of timeliness.

Other forms of real-time requirements may be considered if the submission provides a compelling justification that the problem requires a nontrivial resource allocation, programming, scheduling, or design approach to satisfy timing-predictability requirements.

Improving average-case performance without regard to other criteria is not considered addressing a real-time requirement. However, improving average-case performance while ensuring worst-case latency or execution time variability is not worsened is considered addressing a real-time requirement.

RTSS especially welcomes new and emerging topics that address novel aspects of real-time requirements, such as machine learning techniques for real-time systems, system design for real-time machine learning, resource management in autonomous systems, and system-level solutions for real-time applications exploiting domain-specific accelerators.

When in doubt, please contact the track chairs for clarification.

Surveys and User Studies

Empirical survey-based research focused on the real-time systems field is also welcome. This type of research uses surveys, questionnaires, interviews, use-cases, or other empirical techniques to obtain information about the past/current/future state of play in the research, design, development, verification, validation, and deployment of real-time systems.

(Note that literature surveys that solely classify, review, and summarize existing research papers are not considered empirical research and are not in scope of the conference.)

Proceedings and Awards

All accepted papers will appear in the main program and proceedings, provided they are presented at the conference.

A selection of papers will receive recognition as outstanding papers and will be highlighted as such in the proceedings. Best paper, best student paper, and best presentation awards will be presented at the conference. Submissions are eligible for the best student paper award if the first author is a student as of the submission deadline.

Important Dates

• Submission Deadline (firm): May 22, 2025 (anywhere on Earth)
• Author Response Period: July 14-17, 2025
• Author Notification: July 25, 2025
• Camera-Ready Deadline: September 16, 2025 (tentative)
• Conference: December 2–5, 2025

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions are accepted through the conference site: https://rtss25.hotcrp.com.
• Supplemental materials such as source code, mechanized proofs, data sets, formal models, short demo videos, etc., can be uploaded alongside manuscripts (up to 600 MB, as a ZIP archive). Ideally, each submitted artifact should contain a README with a table of contents, an overview or guidance for reviewers, and reproduction instructions (if applicable).
• Authors should use the official option to provide supplemental materials rather than linking to external repositories.
• Refer to the paper submission guidelines for further details.

Policy on Remote Participation

RTSS’25 is an in-person conference. However, exceptions can be made for authors on a case-by-case basis according to the following TCRTS guidance:

In-person presentations are expected. However, if an author has a valid reason why neither they nor their co-authors can attend the conference in person, then exceptions can potentially be made at the discretion of the Program Chair. Authors who know in advance that this will apply to them, for example because they cannot get a visa for the host country, should contact the Program Chair prior to paper submission.

Following existing TCRTS policy, one author will be required to register for the conference at the “in-person” rate (either student or full) in any case.

Please contact the track chairs by email via rtss25-track-chairs@mpi-sws.org if you would like to inquire about a possible exception or in case of any questions.