Speakers

CES 2026 will feature keynote and invited speakers from academia and industry working on critical embedded systems, cyber-physical systems, real-time systems, trustworthy connectivity, artificial intelligence, security, privacy, and sustainable mobility. The list below includes the currently confirmed speakers. Additional invited speakers will be announced as confirmations are finalized.

Keynote Speakers

Emmanuel Letier
Emmanuel Letier
University College London (UCL)

Keynote Talk Title: Getting Requirements Right Is More Important Than Ever

Biography

Emmanuel Letier is Associate Professor of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL), where his research focuses on requirements engineering and software architecture. A central theme of his work is the analysis of stakeholder goals, using goal graphs, natural language, formal logic, and probabilistic models, to support the development of software systems that are dependable, secure, and fit for purpose.

He holds a PhD in Software Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain, alongside an engineering degree in Applied Mathematics and a bachelor's degree in Philosophy.

He is one of the main contributors to the KAOS Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering method, helping to establish its formal semantics, obstacle analysis techniques, conflict analysis techniques, and techniques to reason about partial goal satisfaction. He also expanded goal modelling with controller synthesis, probabilistic simulations, and search-based multi-objective decision making under uncertainty. He is currently writing a textbook on requirements engineering, whose draft is available from his UCL homepage.

Prof. Mitra Nasri
Mitra Nasri
Research Fellow at TNO-ESI

Keynote Talk Title: Toward a Roadmap for Learning-Enabled and Learning-Assisted Real-Time Systems: Bridging Research Visions and Industrial Needs

Biography

Mitra Nasri is a Research Fellow at TNO-ESI and an Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). She obtained her PhD in 2015 and has since held academic and research positions including a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (Germany), a postdoctoral researcher position at TU Kaiserslautern, and an assistant professorship at Delft University of Technology. Her work lies at the intersection of real-time systems, system performance engineering, and machine learning, with a strong focus on performance modeling and analysis of complex systems. She collaborates closely with industry partners such as Canon, Philips, Microsoft, and ASML, applying real-time theory to practical, large-scale systems.

She is actively involved in the real-time systems community, serving in leadership and organizing roles within IEEE and Dutch national research communities, including the Work Group on Real-Time Systems within CompSys, a special interest group of the Informatica Platform Nederland (IPN). She is a member of the steering committees of the IEEE Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems (TCRTS) and the IEEE Benelux Chapter of Communications/Vehicle Technology (Com/VT). She has chaired several major scientific events, including ICT.OPEN 2025, RTCSA 2025, and CompSys 2025, and has led community initiatives to shape a research agenda on learning-enabled and learning-assisted real-time systems, including the ML-RT-Agenda series (2024, 2025) and WMC 2024. These efforts foster dialogue and help define a roadmap for the future of real-time systems in the era of machine learning.

Marko Valčić
Marko Valčić
Associate Professor, Maritime Department, University of Zadar, Croatia

Keynote Talk Title: From Dynamic Positioning to Autonomous Navigation: Real-Time Control, Redundancy, and Fail-Safe Design Challenges

Biography

Marko Valčić received the M.Eng. and PhD degrees in Marine engineering and Maritime transport technology from the Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia, in 2008 and 2015, respectively. In 2020, he also earned a PhD degree in Naval architecture at the Department of Naval architecture and Ocean engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia. He is currently employed as an Associate Professor at the University of Zadar, Maritime Department, Division of Maritime Engineering, Zadar, Croatia, and is also engaged as an external associate at both the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia. He teaches courses related to marine automation, ship hydromechanics, guidance and control of marine vehicles, marine and offshore operations, autonomous navigation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in engineering and business.

His research interests lie in the areas of marine hydrodynamics and marine control systems (propulsion systems, dynamic positioning systems, propulsion and motion control, guidance and navigational systems, autonomous navigation, green eco-friendly maritime transportation), decision support systems, intelligent systems, machine learning, computational intelligence, nonlinear and non-convex optimization, computational economics and business intelligence. He is involved in numerous research projects as a researcher and serves as a reviewer for a number of top international and domestic scientific journals.

Invited Speakers

Martin Reed

Martin Reed

Full Professor
University of Essex (UK); Founding member of DIA
Talk Title: Cybersecurity for the Future Rail Mobile Communication System
Biography
Martin Reed is a full professor in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex, UK. He has been awarded research funding by U.K. research councils, Industry and EU research programmes, and led work in areas, such as computer networks, communications, cyber security, future Internet architectures, optical network control planes, and media transportation over networks, leading to over 150 peer-reviewed papers. He is a founding member of the Datacom Industry Association. His work has resulted in patents, international impact and inclusion in standards by ITU, IETF and 3GPP.
Dirk Trossen

Dirk Trossen

Executive Partner of DaPaDOT Tech UG, Vice President R&D and Chief Scientist for Norwaves Networks, Secretary General of DIA
Datacom Industry Association
Talk Title: Datacom Industry Association - Advocacy for Continued R&D in the EU's FP10
Biography
Dr. Dirk Trossen is the Executive Partner of DaPaDOT Tech UG, a SW consulting and development company, also serving as Vice President R&D and Chief Scientist for Norwaves Networks in Norway to develop innovative solutions for private 5G networks. Dirk is also the Secretary General of the Datacom Industry Association, founded in 2024 and assembling currently around 50 members in the Datacom industry and associated vertical industries. Dirk held previous appointments as Chief Researcher at Huawei, Interdigital Europe, BT, and Nokia, while also experiencing academic insights as Senior Researcher at Cambridge University and Associate Researcher at MIT. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, holds more than 50 patents, and contributed to several standard organisations like IETF and 3GPP.
Peter Slaets

Peter Slaets

Head of the IMP research group, Department of mechanical engineering
KU Leuven - Belgium
Talk Title: Safety-Critical Components for Autonomous Ships
Biography
Peter Slaets obtained his Master's degree in Mechanical and Electrotechnical Engineering, from the department of Electrical Engineering at KU Leuven in 2002. He then joined the robotics research group at the KU Leuven department of Mechanical Engineering. After two year he started combining his PhD research activities with an educational task at university colleges in Geel and Diepenbeek. In 2008 he obtained his PhD degree in Engineering Science entitled “Geometric 3D model building from sensor measurements collected during compliant motion”. After obtaining his PhD degree he became an assistant professor at the university college Group T within the unit of Mechanical Engineering. In 2013 the university college Group T joined the KU Leuven family as the largest campus of a new Engineering Technology faculty. The foundation of the Intelligent Mobile Platform (IMP) research group together with the start of a ZAP-track in 2015 illustrates his research ambitions within KU Leuven. The IMP group is a multi-disciplinary and multi-campus research group with a focus on the intelligent design and control of the mobile robot platforms of the future. Current research application domains are: inland shipping, robots for health and low cost indoor localization. Currently he is supervising multiple PhD students and participating in various research/industrial projects with a strong focus on the engineering and development of new robot technologies induced by scientific advances.
Alessandro Biondi

Alessandro Biondi

Associate Professor
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - Pisa, Italy
Talk Title: Safe and Secure Machine Learning for Cyber-Physical Systems (TBC)
Biography
Alessandro Biondi is Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa (Italy), where he works at the Real-Time Systems (ReTiS) Laboratory. His main research interests include the design and implementation of real-time, safe, and secure cyber-physical systems (CPS), operating systems and hypervisors, safe and secure machine learning for CPS, cyber-security and virtualization for embedded systems, and analysis and design optimization for real-time embedded systems.
He graduated cum laude in Computer Engineering at the University of Pisa, Italy, within the excellence program. In 2017, he received a PhD cum laude in Emerging Digital Technologies (curriculum Embedded Systems) at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. In 2016, he has been Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Kaiserslautern (Germany), where he worked with Prof. Bjoern B. Brandenburg. He was the recipient of several awards including the ACM SIGBED Early Career Award 2019, the IEEE TCCPS Early Career Award 2023, seven Best Paper Awards, one Best Journal Paper Award (IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics), one Outstanding Paper Award, one Best Presentation Award, one Best Paper Nomination, the EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award 2017 in the area "New directions in software design and optimization for embedded, cyber-physical and secure systems". He's also included in the Stanford/Elsevier World's Top 2% Scientists.
Alessandro Biondi has been involved as a member of the Program Committee of top conferences in the area of real-time, embedded, and cyber-physical systems. He is Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), Journal of Real-Time Systems (Springer), and Leibniz Transactions on Embedded Systems (LITES), and served as reviewer for most IEEE/ACM Transactions journals that cover research on embedded and cyber-physical systems. He served as TPC Chair of EMSOFT 2024, TPC Vice-Chair of EMSOFT 2023, General Chair of RTNS 2025, and TPC Track Co-Chair of ETFA 2023 and 2022. Alessandro Biondi is also member of the Scientific Committee of SERICS: Security and Rights in the Cyberspace, the Technical Committee on Factory Automation of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, and part of the Steering Committees of the ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT) and the International Conference on Real-Time Networks and Systems (RTNS).
He published several papers in international conferences, quality journals, and workshops, and filed two patents. He is currently leading industrial research projects in the area of safety-critical and secure software systems for automotive and railway industries, and he has been involved in research projects funded by the European Commission.
Alessandro Biondi is also co-founder of Accelerat, a company focused on software solutions for safe, secure, and predictable cyber-physical systems.
Renaud De Landtsheer

Renaud De Landtsheer

R&D Manager
CETIC
Talk Title: Fighting High Fuel Cost with Privacy-Preserving Federated Routing Optimization
Biography
Renaud De Landtsheer completed a PhD in security and requirements engineering at UCLouvain in 2007, notably focusing on confidentiality and formal methods. He then worked for 18 years at CETIC in technology transfer towards the local Walloon ecosystem, notably developing routing optimization algorithms based on local search and global constraints.
Ahmed Bannour

Ahmed Bannour

Senior R&D in Telecommunications and Senior Lecturer
Multitel (BE) and FPM-UMONS
Talk Title: Smart Connectivity in Inland Waterways: From Analysis to Deployment
Biography
Bannour Ahmed (Member, IEEE) received the engineering degree in telecommunications, as well as the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in telecommunications from the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis, Tunisia, in 2006, 2008, and 2013, respectively. He is currently a Research Associate with the University of Carthage, affiliated with Innov'Com and the Higher School of Communications of Tunis (Sup'Com), Tunisia. He also serves as a Senior Researcher with the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Mons, Belgium, where he contributed to collaborative industry-driven projects, including work on modular and connected control systems in partnership with leading industrial stakeholders such as Alstom and Thales. His current research focuses on smart connectivity, digital communication systems, and the integration of 5G and emerging 6G technologies into transport and industrial infrastructures, including applications in smart mobility and connected inland transport systems. He is actively involved in TRL 5 research projects at Multitel, Belgium, contributing to the development and validation of next-generation connectivity solutions bridging academic research and industrial deployment.
Xavier Lessage

Xavier Lessage

Senior Research Engineer
CETIC
Talk Title: Secure Federated Learning on Medical Data and Perspectives for its Transposition to the Transport and Mobility Sector
Biography
Xavier Lessage: Senior Research Engineer at CETIC since 2021. Expert in AI, Cloud, Cyber Security & HPC. PhD in Applied Sciences. Passionate about AI in healthcare. Former Technical Manager at Group S. Xavier is a civil engineer in computer science / management from the Polytechnic Faculty of Mons and an industrial engineer in electromechanical / automatic (HELHA). He also holds a university certificate in artificial intelligence (UMONS) and a doctorate in applied sciences (UMONS).
François Hausman

François Hausman

Mainline Cybersecurity Director
Alstom
Talk Title: Challenge of Implementation of New Cybersecurity Regulation on Critical Embedded Systems
Biography
François Hausman is Mainline Cybersecurity Director at Alstom, with over 26 years of experience in the railway sector. He has spent more than 17 years working on critical systems and architecture, including over a decade specializing in cybersecurity for critical embedded systems. He is actively involved in international collaboration, serving as a work package leader in several international working groups and contributing to multiple standardization initiatives in cybersecurity.
Aysajan Abidin

Aysajan Abidin

Research Expert
COSIC, KU Leuven
Talk Title: MOZAIK: An MPC-Based Approach to Privacy-Preserving Data Management in Cyber-Physical Systems
Biography
Aysajan Abidin is a research expert at COSIC, KU Leuven, Belgium, where he specializes in applied cryptographic protocols, privacy-enhancing technologies, authentication, and quantum cryptography. He earned his M.Sc. in Engineering Mathematics from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden in 2007, and obtained his PhD in Information Coding from Linköping University in 2013. Before joining COSIC in 2015, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Chalmers University, focusing on privacy-preserving biometric authentication. His research bridges theory and practice in cryptography, with contributions in areas such as authentication, privacy-preserving machine learning, distance bounding, post-quantum security, and advanced cryptographic protocols. He also holds six patents in these fields.
Charalampos Rotsos

Charalampos Rotsos

Senior Lecturer
Lancaster University and DIA
Talk Title: Critical Network Service Management in the Age of Agentic AI: From Automation to Resilience
Biography
Charalampos Rotsos is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Networks and Networked Systems at Lancaster University. His research focuses on network service management and orchestration, network programmability, and cloud operating systems, with an emphasis on building observable and resilient networked services. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and conferences. Bridging academic and industry communities, he contributes to the TM Forum Autonomous Networks project and the IRTF Network Management Research Group (NMRG). He also participates in the Datacom Systems and Enabling Technologies Working Group and co-leads the Resilience and Network Architectures streams.
Gianluca Bianchin

Gianluca Bianchin

Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematical Engineering, ICTEAM, UCLouvain
Talk Title: From Control Theory to AI-Powered Robotics: Learning in Dynamic Environments
Biography
Gianluca Bianchin is an Assistant Professor with the ICTEAM Institute at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. He received the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Riverside in 2020. He previously obtained the M.Sc. degree in Controls Engineering from the University of Padua, Italy, in 2014. Dr. Bianchin was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2020 to 2022. He has also spent time as a Visiting Researcher at the Bosch Research and Technology Center North America and at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Prof. Bianchin received the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems Best Paper Award in 2023 and the Dissertation Year Award from the University of California, Riverside, in 2019. Additionally, his research on secure robotic navigation was selected as the Editor's Choice of the Month by the Elsevier journal Automatica in February 2020. His research interests include dynamical systems, control theory, and algorithmic optimization and their applications in traffic control and network infrastructures.
Jérôme Ligot

Jérôme Ligot

Head of Systems Division
V2i
Talk Title: Automated and Tailor-Made Fault Detection for Valve Bellows Using Profilometry, Machine Vision, and AI-Based Diagnosis
Biography
Jérôme Ligot holds a Master of Aerospace Engineering from the University of Liège and has more than 15 years of experience at V2i where his expertise covers sensor integration, machine vision, software development for automated inspection systems, vibration testing, structural dynamics, and experimental modal analysis. Since 2023, he has been Head of the Systems Divisions at both V2i and Optrion, where he supervises the development of custom industrial monitoring systems and advanced non-destructive inspection solutions.
Benjamin Lesage

Benjamin Lesage

Program Development Manager for ATO Mainline
Alstom
Talk Title: Automatic Train Operation (ATO) in Mainline Railway: Constraints and Challenges
Biography
Benjamin Lesage is Program Development Manager for Automatic Train Operation (ATO) Mainline at Alstom. He has over 21 years of experience in the railway industry, including 16 years focused on critical embedded systems. He is a senior expert in Automatic Train Control, with extensive experience in the development and deployment of advanced railway automation solutions.
Jean-Sébastien Gonsette

Jean-Sébastien Gonsette

Expert IA & Computer Sciences
AISIN Europe
Talk Title: Efficient Route Planning for EVs
Biography
I hold a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Faculty of Mons, which I obtained in 2003, as well as a specialized Master's degree in Control and Embedded Systems from ISAE-SUPAERO in 2004. I then worked for six years at Thales on the development of satellite control systems, including those for Galileo. In 2010, I left the aerospace sector to join the automotive industry at AW. This also gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my first passion, working on topics such as artificial intelligence. I further enhanced my training with a University Certificate in Artificial Intelligence, which I obtained from the University of Mons in 2019.
Eduard Baranov

Eduard Baranov

Postdoctoral Researcher
UCLouvain
Talk Title: Robustness for CPS through Formal Verification with System Model Checking
Biography
Eduard Baranov is a postdoc in ICTEAM institute at UCLouvain. He received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. Before joining UCLouvain, he was a postdoc at Fortiss, Germany and at INRIA, France. His research focuses on practical application of formal methods, in particular Statistical Model Checking, testing, and cybersecurity.