Call For Papers

ACM MobiSys 2026 seeks to present innovative and significant research on all aspects of mobile computing, applications, and services. The conference values technical contributions with working implementations and practical evaluations. We also welcome work that critically examines compelling mobile scenarios and applications, shedding light on novel insights and lessons learned. We also encourage the submission of papers that provide detailed technical explorations of real-world deployments of applications and systems.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• New software systems for mobile computing (including architectures, operating systems, infrastructure support, and web)
• Energy and resource management for mobile devices
• Machine learning and AI for mobile devices
• Novel human-mobile interaction techniques and experiences
• Security and privacy in mobile systems
• Wearable systems and applications
• Vehicular, robotic, and drone systems
• Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality systems
• Context and location sensing systems
• Application-focused mobile and wireless systems (i.e., systems for health, accessibility, sustainability, climate, buildings, agriculture, etc.)
• Mobile and wireless systems in challenging environments (e.g, underwater, space, in-body)
• Novel datasets for mobile and wireless systems
• Wireless communication and sensing systems (including 5G/6G, millimeter-wave & THz, backscatter, LPWAN)
• Experience with mobile applications, networks, and systems
• Non-traditional topics that bring new perspectives to mobile computing

Important Dates

Submission

Please register and submit your paper at https://mobisys26.hotcrp.com/. Detailed guidelines on submission policies and formatting requirements portal are available on the MobiSys 2026 website at https://www.sigmobile.org/mobisys/2026/.

Contacts

If you have any questions, please contact the Program Co-Chairs, Fadel Adib and Youngki Lee at mobisys26.pc.chairs@gmail.com.

Submission Guidelines

Submission Site

Please register and submit your paper at https://mobisys26.hotcrp.com/.

Policy on Concurrent/Previous submissions

Papers whose contributions overlap with work currently under review elsewhere must not be submitted to ACM MobiSys 2026. Papers whose contributions overlap with an earlier published paper will be considered only if

1. The previous paper was published (not just accepted) at a workshop before the ACM MobiSys 2026 submission date and
2. It adds significant new contributions over the previous paper. Authors uncertain whether their submission meets these guidelines should contact the program chairs. Papers accompanied by non-disclosure agreement forms will not be considered. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.

All submissions must describe original research not published or currently under review for another conference or journal. It is ACM policy not to allow double submissions, where the same paper is submitted concurrently to more than one conference/journal. Any double submissions detected will be immediately rejected from all conferences/journals involved.

Posted technical reports (ArXiv or similar) do not count as prior publication. However, we encourage the authors to

1. Use different system names in the technical report and ACM MobiSys 2026 submission and
2. Avoid publicizing the technical report on social media, public media, or community blogs and webpages while it is under review by ACM MobiSys 2026.

Resubmission Policy

If your submission was based on work that was previously peer-reviewed and rejected, you are encouraged to provide a short summary of the points raised by the reviewers of your previous submission and how you addressed them. This non-mandatory summary can be submitted to the submission system and should not be part of the paper submission itself. We do not expect a full rebuttal addressing each point, but rather an indication to the reviewers of ACM MobiSys 2026 that you have taken the previous reviewers’ comments seriously and are not simply resubmitting the paper as it was to ACM MobiSys 2026. The summary you have provided will be visible to the reviewers after they submitted their review to avoid any bias against paper resubmissions.

Formatting Guidelines

Submissions must be in PDF. We will not accept papers in any other format. Any papers that do not adhere to the following guidelines may be rejected without review:

1. Papers must not exceed twelve (12) single-spaced, numbered pages for the main content, including figures and tables.
2. Authors may provide additional appendix and reference sections without page limits. The appendix and references will not count toward the 12-page limit, but reviewers are not required to read the appendix and may consult it at their discretion.
3. Submissions in which the main content including any material intended for review exceeds 12 pages will not be reviewed, regardless of the length of the appendix or references.
4. Font size no smaller than 10 points.
5. Double column format with each column having dimensions 9.25 inches x 3.33 inches, a space of 0.33 inches between the two columns, and with no more than 55 lines of text per column.
6. Fit properly on US letter-sized paper (8.5 inches by 11 inches).
7. Submissions must be in PDF (Portable Document Format) authors should ensure that they are compatible with Adobe Acrobat (English version). Any other formats, including Postscript and MS-Word, will not be accepted.
8. You may find these templates useful in complying with the above requirements. For Latex users, please use \documentclass[sigconf,10pt]{acmart}. But as an author, you bear the final responsibility to verify that your submission is format compliant.

Policy on the Use of Large Language Models

Following MobiSys 2025 and other major conferences such as CHI 2025, any text in submissions that is generated using large-scale language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, must be clearly identified by the authors in the submitted paper. This policy does not apply to using LLMs for editing/proofreading the author’s own text. Authors are also not allowed to embed any (hidden) text or other material in the submission that would encourage LLMs to favorably review their submission. Please carefully review the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship before you use these tools. While we do not anticipate using tools at a large scale to identify LLM-generated text, we will thoroughly investigate submissions brought to our attention and desk reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked or where it is detected to be used in violation of this policy.

Ethics Review Board Approval Requirement

As part of the submission process, authors of papers that describe experiments on human subjects, or that analyze non-public data derived from human subjects (even anonymized data), will be asked to certify that their work was vetted by an ethics review (e.g., Institutional Review Board (IRB), Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) or similar approval). We expect authors to follow the rules of their host institutions around data collection and experiments with human subjects. Papers that will not adhere to this rule will be rejected.

Author List [New to MobiSys'26]

The list of authors may not be updated after the paper submission deadline.

Emerging Ideas Track [New to MobiSys'26]

The Emerging Ideas track welcomes bold, forward-looking, and potentially high-impact research that may be in early stages of development. Submissions should explore new problems, challenge prevailing assumptions, or introduce conceptual shifts in how we think about mobile systems - even if they are not yet fully validated. The review process will adopt a distinct mindset: priority will be given to originality, clarity of insight, and potential to shape future directions, rather than completeness or technical maturity. Evaluation will focus on whether the idea is sufficiently plausible and compelling, not necessarily deployable or exhaustively proven. Accepted papers will be featured in a dedicated session aimed at sparking discussion and surfacing fresh perspectives in the MobiSys community.

Amendment to the MobiSys Peer Reviewing Policy [New to MobiSys'26]

Since its inception in 2003, MobiSys had a single-blind review policy where the identities of the reviewers were not revealed to the authors, but the reviewers knew the names, affiliations, and contact information of the authors. In 2017, this policy was modified: in addition to the identity of the reviewers not being revealed to the authors, the identities of the authors were not revealed to the reviewers during the initial review of the paper.

Over the past several years, we have witnessed a remarkable increase in the pace and volume of research within our community. The number of papers being submitted has soared, leading to the expansion of Technical Program Committees (TPCs), which has inadvertently increased the probability of mistakes. Additionally, many authors are now releasing the code associated with their research, they are writing blogs, and publishing their papers on arXiv before submission, and there has been a noticeable reduction in self-policing due to author anonymity.

In light of these developments, we are once again revising our paper review policy. Starting in 2026, MobiSys will revert to a single-blind review process. Consequently, authors are now required to include their names, affiliations, and contact information on the manuscripts they submit for review.

This change will allow reviewers to identify any potential conflicts of interest that might otherwise go unnoticed. This is essential to maintaining the integrity of the review process and ensuring that all evaluations are fair and unbiased. Moreover, knowing the authors’ identity can help address any issues caused by false assumptions about the authorship of a paper. This also enables referees to ask more appropriate and targeted questions. This makes it easier to compare new results with the authors’ previously published work, ensuring that a true advance is being reported and it removes the burden authors face in anonymizing their previous research results.

We believe that this change will promote transparency and accountability, ultimately improving the quality of our conference proceedings. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we implement this new policy.

Conflict of Interest

To ensure a fair review process, PC members who have a conflict of interest with any author of the submission will not review or participate in the discussion of the submission. It is the author’s responsibility to mark conflict of interests in the submission website.

ACM MobiSys 2026 will follow the ACM policy and also add and extend rules on the specific relationships to explicitly define conflicts of interest of one submission as:

1. any program committee member who works/worked at the same organizational affiliation with any co-author in the last 24 months or reasonably expected within the next 12 months;
2. any program committee member who has co-authored any book, article, report, abstract or paper with collaboration in the last 24 months or reasonably expected within the next 12 months;
3. any program committee member who has collaborated on projects, such as funded grants, research or others with any co-author in the last 24 months or reasonably expected within the next 12 months;
4. any program committee member who is/was the advisor or advisee of any co-author; These include your BSc advisor(s), Msc advisor(s), PhD advisor(s) and/or postdoctoral host(s).
5. any program committee member who graduated from the same research group and/or was under the same advisor/supervisor/manager in the last 48 months;
6. any program committee member who is exposed to the full or partial authorship of the work being submitted here in any public or private channel (including but not limited to interview talks, campus visits, research discussion, conversations);
7. any program committee member who has family, marriage, blood, or heritage relationships;
8. any program committee member who has a close personal friendship or business relationship beyond professional settings that could affect the review process with any co-author;
9. others perceivable conflicts.

Cases that do not require conflict of interest notification include:

1. Reviewers that are working on the same topic as you.
2. Collaborations with the reviewers on program committees, open source projects, etc.
3. A potential conflict of interest must be identified at the submission and can be updated at any point during the review process, but when possible, potential conflicts should be determined before acceptance decisions are made.

The author(s) must identify every conflict of interest out of all program committee members (including chairs) with any author of the submission and indicate the type of conflict during the submission process. The authors should not mark any reviewer as a conflict unless they fall in one of the above conflict of interest categories; the authors are expected to be ready to justify any marked conflict if asked by the PC chairs. For other forms of conflicts (item 8), the authors must contact the program chairs and explain the perceived conflict.

Knowingly hiding or falsifying a stated conflict of interest, and knowingly and falsely asserting a conflict of interest, e.g., to prevent or alter peer-reviewing, to discourage appropriate reviewing, or to seek disadvantage of another are both considered as a violation of this conflict of interest policy. We will return the violated submissions with no reviews. Please contact program committee chairs if you have any doubts regarding declaring conflicts of interest.

Post-Submission Information

Mandatory Registration

At least one author of an accepted paper is expected to register for the ACM MobiSys 2026 conference (at a non-student rate) and present the paper in-person.

Open Access Publishing Model [New to 2026 ACM Conferences]

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To determine whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the ACM APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.

Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

• $250 APC for ACM/SIG members
• $350 APC for non-members

This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.

This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.

Artefact Evaluation and Paper Results Reproducibility

As in the case of previous two ACM MobiSys editions, the authors of accepted ACM MobiSys 2026 papers will have the option to opt for an artefact evaluation. By doing so, they commit to providing the implementations, models, test suites, benchmarks, and data used to derive the results presented in the paper to the artefact evaluation committee. Based on the evaluation, the papers will be awarded the appropriate artefact evaluation badgelink: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/artefact-review-badging. The artefact evaluation will be conducted after paper acceptance decisions.

Irrespective of taking part in the artefact evaluation, we encourage all authors to do their best to provide enough information in the paper allowing non-authors to replicate results presented in the paper.

Early Rejection Notification, Rebuttal, and Shepherding

ACM MobiSys 2026 will have early rejection notifications and a rebuttal phase. The authors of the papers that do not advance to the second round of review will be notified of the rejection of their paper. This allows the authors to plan for another submission and not have to wait for the ACM MobiSys 2026 review process to come to an end. The papers that do advance to the second round of review will get a chance to submit a rebuttal after the second round comes to an end. In the rebuttal, the authors will be asked to respond to the questions raised by the reviewers.

We ask the authors to limit their responses to correcting factual errors in the reviews or responding to specific questions posed by the reviewers. Responses may only include new experiments or describe additional work completed since submission if they directly address reviewer feedback; alternatively, the authors are allowed to promise additional results if they are expected to be available by the camera-ready deadline. To lower the amount of effort for both the authors and reviewers, ACM MobiSys 2026 limits the rebuttal to 500 words.

We ask the authors to limit their responses to correcting factual errors in the reviews or responding to specific questions posed by the reviewers. Responses must not include new experiments or describe additional work completed since submission. To lower the amount of effort for both the authors and reviewers, ACM MobiSys 2026 limits the rebuttal to 500 words.

Every accepted paper will receive a conditional acceptance at the notification stage. Final acceptance will be granted after an anonymous shepherding process. During this process, the shepherd may request additional evaluation results, not limited to editorial changes. These requests can be critical for the final acceptance decision.

One Page Public Review [New to MobiSys'26]

Each accepted paper will be accompanied with a one-page public review, which will appear both on the MobiSys website and in the proceedings. The review will be compiled by a TPC member and will summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the paper as evaluated by the TPC.

Papers Preview Session [New to MobiSys'26]

For each accepted paper, one author is required to participate in the Papers Preview session on-site in Cambridge, Monday, June 22, 2026. In addition to the material that is part of your publication, you will be asked to provide a short presentation for the Papers Preview. The authors will be allowed 20 seconds to summarize the paper and entice attendees to attend their complete paper presentation during the conference week. The deadline for the Papers Preview pre-recorded video is May 10, 2026. Additional information will be provided upon acceptance.