Investments for the future

Equipex Robotex (2011–2020)

Context

Equipex Robo­t­ex : 2011–2020

The Equipex Robo­t­ex « equip­ment of excel­lence » is a net­work of exper­i­men­tal robot­ics plat­forms that extends across 15 lab­o­ra­to­ries in France, under the stew­ard­ship of CNRS.

With­in this net­work, Heudi­asyc is in charge of the « Ter­res­tri­al and Aer­i­al Mobile Robot­ics » node (coor­di­na­tor: Philippe Bonnifait).

Equipments

Robo­t­ex has enabled the Lab to acquire and equip the fol­low­ing with high-qual­i­ty instrumentation: 

• 3 robo­t­ized elec­tric vehi­cles (two Renault Zoës and a Renault Fluence) 
• A col­lec­tion of 4‑rotor and 8‑rotor mini-UAVs 
• Asso­ci­at­ed equip­ment: indoor and out­door fly­ing are­nas, a Renault Mas­ter util­i­ty vehi­cle, a 3D print­er, high-end sen­sors, etc.

This equip­ment has been used to test and val­i­date numer­ous research works by dif­fer­ent teams in the Lab.

The bud­get allo­cat­ed to Heudi­asyc by Robo­t­ex for the 2011–2016 peri­od was € 945k, in addi­tion to € 900k of co-fund­ing by the Picardie (now Hauts-de-France) region­al author­i­ty and the Euro­pean Region­al Devel­op­ment Fund.

Robotex actions

• In May 2016 Heudi­asyc was the only French team to take part in the Euro­pean Grand Coop­er­a­tive Dri­ving Chal­lenge GCDC’2016, where ten teams com­pet­ed against each oth­er in a full-scale demon­stra­tion of coop­er­a­tive autonomous dri­ving. The set­ting was the A270 motor­way between Hel­mond and Eind­hoven in the Netherlands.

• Heudi­asyc host­ed the Robo­t­ex « Tech­days » tech­ni­cal sem­i­nars in July 2015

Labex MS2T (2011–2022)

Overview

The lab­o­ra­to­ry of Excel­lence Labex MS2T was cho­sen by the French gov­ern­ment in March 2011 after being select­ed by an inter­na­tion­al jury as part of the « Invest­ments for the Future » pro­gram. It received a 6.7 mil­lion euros grant for nine years. 

The « Lab­o­ra­to­ries of Excel­lence » pro­gram, coor­di­nat­ed by ANR (french nation­al research agency), aims to pro­vide the best nation­al lab­o­ra­to­ries with inter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cant resources in order to enable them to com­pete with their for­eign coun­ter­parts, attract inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned researchers and aca­d­e­mics, and cre­ate a high-lev­el and inte­grat­ed pol­i­cy for research, train­ing and development.

The Labex MS2T “Con­trol of Tech­no­log­i­cal Sys­tems-of-Sys­tems” is a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary sci­en­tif­ic prob­lem that tar­gets a scope of appli­ca­tion that may be very large.

It brings togeth­er 4 lab­o­ra­to­ries of Com­piègne Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy asso­ci­at­ed with CNRS:

• Heudi­asyc (leader) : Sci­ences de l’in­for­ma­tion et du numérique
• BMBI : Bio­mé­canique, ingénierie de la Santé
• Rober­val : Mécanique, Matéri­aux, Acoustique

Aims and research topics

Labex MS2T will make sig­nif­i­cant progress on three sig­nif­i­cant social issues : Trans­port and Mobil­i­ty, Secu­ri­ty, Health (ICT and Health Engineering).

Topics research

• Inter­ac­tion and coop­er­a­tion between systems
• Uncer­tain­ty management
• Opti­mized design of tech­no­log­i­cal SoS
• Dynam­ics of sys­tems of sys­tems : emer­gence and agility

Challenge teams

• DIVINA : DIs­trib­uted coop­er­a­tive VIsu­al Nav­i­ga­tion for mul­ti-uAv systems
• DAPAD : Dis­trib­uted and aug­ment­ed vehi­cle per­cep­tion to sup­port autonomous driving
• INTERFACE : Tis­sues and cell Inter­faces in mus­cle-skele­ton sys­tem: Appli­ca­tion to the design of bioar­ti­fi­cial SoS 

Equipex+TIRREX (2021–2029)

Context

The Heudi­asyc research lab­o­ra­to­ry at UTC is involved in the Future Invest­ment Pro­gram, « Struc­tur­ing Equip­ment for Research » (ESR) Equipex + TIRREX, led by the CNRS.

TIRREX : Tech­no­log­i­cal Infra­struc­ture for Robot­ics Research of Excellence

Research objectives and focus areas

Objectives

TIRREX (Tech­no­log­i­cal Infra­struc­ture for Robot­ics Research of Excel­lence) is the result of sev­er­al years of research and reflec­tion in the field of robot­ics. It aims to devel­op new flag­ship robot­ics plat­forms with nation­al coor­di­na­tion for their access and development.

 The project brings togeth­er all major actors in French aca­d­e­m­ic robot­ics research (CNRS, INRIA, CEA, INRAE) and is struc­tured around 6 the­mat­ic axes and 3 trans­ver­sal axes designed to sup­port the the­mat­ic axes. Bring­ing open­ness to an unprece­dent­ed lev­el in robot­ics, a third trans­ver­sal axis will focus on open infrastructure.

 It aims to ensure, stan­dard­ize access, and main­tain the open­ness of data, soft­ware, and pub­li­ca­tions pro­duced (FAIR data and open-source software).

Research topics

Equipex+CONTINUUM (2021–2029)

Context

The Heudi­asyc research lab­o­ra­to­ry at UTC is involved in the Future Invest­ment Pro­gram, Struc­tur­ing Equip­ment for Research (ESR) Equipex + CONTINUUM, led by the CNRS.

CONTINUUM : Col­lab­o­ra­tive con­tin­u­um from dig­i­tal to human

CONTINUUM aims to cre­ate a col­lab­o­ra­tive research infra­struc­ture of 30 plat­forms locat­ed through­out France to advance inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research between com­put­er sci­ence and the human­i­ties and social sciences.

Research objectives and focus areas

Objectives

Through CONTINUUM, 37 research teams will devel­op cut­ting-edge research focused on visu­al­iza­tion, immer­sion, inter­ac­tion, and col­lab­o­ra­tion, as well as on human per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tion, and behav­ior in virtual/augmented reality.

CONTINUUM enables a par­a­digm shift in our per­cep­tion, inter­ac­tion, and col­lab­o­ra­tion with com­plex dig­i­tal data and dig­i­tal worlds by plac­ing the human being at the cen­ter of data pro­cess­ing flows.

The project pro­vides sci­en­tists, engi­neers, and indus­tri­al users with a net­work of high-per­for­mance visu­al­iza­tion and immer­sion plat­forms to observe, manip­u­late, under­stand, and share dig­i­tal data, mul­ti-scale sim­u­la­tions, and vir­tu­al or aug­ment­ed expe­ri­ences. All plat­forms will enable remote col­lab­o­ra­tion and will be equipped with mobile devices that can be loaned to users to facil­i­tate access to these technologies.

Research topics

The CONTINUUM project revolves around 2 research axes:

• Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research on inter­ac­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion between com­put­er sci­ence and the human­i­ties and social sci­ences, to increase knowl­edge and solu­tions in human-cen­tered computing;
• Deploy­ment of tools and ser­vices to meet the needs of var­i­ous sci­en­tif­ic domains in terms of access to big data, sim­u­la­tions, and virtual/augmented expe­ri­ences (math­e­mat­ics, physics, biol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, com­put­er sci­ence, med­i­cine, psy­chol­o­gy, edu­ca­tion, his­to­ry, archae­ol­o­gy, soci­ol­o­gy, etc.).