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Trulli

WiOpt 2026 Workshop on

Modeling and Optimization for Semantic Communications (MOSC)

June 6, 2026, Columbus, OH, USA

Call for Workshop Papers

A departure from traditional communication theories, methodologies, and network architectures is essential to fully harness the potential of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, and edge computing, as well as the evolution toward 6G networks and the widespread adoption of AI/ML techniques. This shift is crucial to enable more efficient, reliable, and accurate forms of machine-type communications, calling for innovative communication and networking models and protocols specifically designed for this purpose. This emerging paradigm, known as semantic communications, encompasses both the semantic level, which concerns how accurately the transmitted symbols convey the intended meaning, and the effectiveness level, often referred to as goal-oriented communications, which focuses on the usefulness of the exchanged information in relation to the objective of the communication in interactive contexts.

An initial step toward this vision was marked by the introduction of the Age of Information (AoI) metric about a decade ago, which quantified the freshness of information at the receiver and inspired a rich line of research on timely communications. However, AoI and its extensions primarily address when and how often information should be transmitted, rather than what information is most relevant to transmit. To bridge this gap, recent research has expanded toward metrics and frameworks that capture the semantic and goal-oriented dimensions of communication. These include Quality of Information (QoI), Value of Information (VoI), Age of Incorrect Information (AoII), and other task-aware or distortion-based measures that assess how much a message contributes to the effectiveness of decision-making, estimation, or control. The field has further evolved toward joint source–channel coding guided by application-layer semantics, the integration of ML-driven encoders and decoders, and the exploration of finite-blocklength regimes for real-time, goal-oriented information exchange. As a result, semantic communications have become a truly interdisciplinary frontier, connecting networking, information theory, machine learning, linguistics, and cognitive sciences.

The 3rd Workshop on Modeling and Optimization for Semantic Communications (MOSC), held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad hoc, and Wireless Networks (WiOpt), aims to provide a dedicated forum for researchers and technical experts to share the latest advances, present significant and emerging results in goal-oriented and semantic communications, and identify new challenges and future research opportunities in the field.

We invite the submission of original papers that advance both the fundamental principles and the practical applications of semantic metrics and communication protocols. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Steering Committee:

Yin Sun, Auburn University, AL, USA

Elif Uysal, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

General Co-chairs:

Yu Cheng, Illinois Institute of Technology, IL, USA

Yin Sun, Auburn University, AL, USA

Technical Program Co-chairs:

Fabio Busacca, University of Catania, Italy

Andrea Panebianco, Auburn University, AL, USA

Howard Hao Yang, Zhejiang University, China

Important Dates

Paper submission: Sunday, 8 March 2026 11:59 PM EDT

Notification of acceptance: Sunday, 29 March 2026

Camera ready paper: Sunday, 5 April 2026 11:59 PM EDT

Submission Guidelines

Submitted papers should follow WiOpt guidelines at: https://wiopt2026.github.io/. Authors are invited to submit original papers of no more than 8 pages (standard IEEE proceedings, two-column, 10 pt font, etc.), including figures, tables, and references, in PDF format. All papers will be submitted through EDAS: https://edas.info/N34452.