CIEDS - Interdisciplinary Centre for Defence and Security

Objectives:

• Understand the diffraction of waves in the vicinity of singular objects with edges or conical points.
• Develop passive imaging and communication methods, using ambient noise sources or opportunistic sources.
• Develop imaging algorithms in complex environments, with measurement uncertainties, uncertainties in the sources or in the propagation medium. Tevelop efficient inversion methods, suitable for large problems or for real-time imaging, which take into account the non-linearity of the problem.

Applications :

• Passive radar or sonar imaging with greater stealth Improved radar or sonar imaging performance

Objectives:

• Develop new perception and control algorithms for drone swarms in all types of environments (land, sea, air).
• Develop new validation methods to ensure the functioning of these algorithms, respecting real time constraints and operating domains. Implementing artificial intelligence techniques.
• Open an outdoor robotics platform and establish an experimental environment open to external users.

Applications :

• Progression of UAV swarms for defence or dual applications, such as search-and-rescue missions, building inspection, or area surveillance.
• Driver assistance systems in unstructured environments for piloted or remotely piloted vehicles.

Objectives:

• Build a demonstrator of digital attacks and defence mechanisms in the field of intelligent buildings, including many connected systems that are potential targets of attacks aimed at disrupting the functioning of the whole building.
• Specify the expected security properties by defining security policies that ensure full risk coverage. Deploy mechanisms to enforce these extended security policies.
• Verify the effectiveness of these mechanisms using a rigorous and reproducible methodology.
• Develop new tools to detect and respond to attacks on this type of equipment.

Applications :

• Protection of sensitive buildings against cyber attacks.

Objectives:

• To develop a detailed understanding of the combustion of energetic materials for Defence (explosives, propellants, gas generators) by implementing fundamental and applied know-how in combustion, thermochemistry, process thermodynamics, simulation and theoretical chemistry.
• Establish detailed and reduced thermo-kinetic models capable of predicting the combustion of energetic materials.
• Propose predictive tools enabling manufacturers to predict the sensitivity to impact, shock or friction of new materials implemented following the evolution of regulations.

Applications:

• Modifications of additives in energetic materials Defence, explosives or propellants, to meet REACH requirements.

Objectives:

• Develop intense X-ray sources using very high power lasers.
• Adapt the target to be compatible with an increased rate of laser fire.
• Develop the capabilities and performance of the SHERIL platform in terms of stability, resolution and signal-to-noise ratio.
• To model the complete chain for X-ray imaging: optimised physical model (digital twin) simulating the generation of the electron source, the conversion into X-rays, and then the interaction of the X-rays with the parts to be X-rayed.

Applications:

• Very high resolution (sub-millimetre) non-destructive testing of thick metal parts, including those produced by additive manufacturing.

Objectives:

• Identify areas of progress in the management of development and innovation processes, particularly within ecosystems that closely mix public and private sector actors, such as the armaments sector.
• Targeting areas for improvement in project management practices and processes.

Methodology:

• Interviews with contacts at Ministère des armées – AID and with industrial partners.
• Observation of existing processes, or retrospective analysis of past projects.
• Analyse practices, constraints and capacities for introducing innovations into programmes.

Applications:

• Acculturation on the key issues identified by the study.
• Proposal of systemic management tools (typologies, decision matrices, evaluation tools). Support for major industrial defence programmes

Objectives:

• Qualify a duplex steel fabricated by additive manufacturing for use under cyclic loading in a corrosive environment.
• Compare and hybridize two additive manufacturing processes, by powder bed or powder spraying. Optimise the microstructure of a two‐phase steel (ferrite and austenite) with or without thermal or thermomechanical post‐treatment.
• Characterise fatigue properties as a function of microstructure and analyse the role of corrosion in crack propagation.
• Study the competition between defects and microstructure in fatigue by a coupled experimental and numerical approach.

Applications :

• Adaptation or functionalisation of forged or additively manufactured parts.
• Preventive or corrective maintenance of parts used in a marine and/or corrosive environment.

Objectives:

• Develop an ultra‐sensitive method for the detection of RNA viruses causing hemorrhagic fevers, without amplification of the viral cDNA.
• Optimise the performance of nanoparticles used as virus detection probes.
• Miniaturise the hardware associated with this detection.
• Propose reagents ‐ nanoparticles coupled to specific oligonucleotides ‐ that are lyophilised and do not require freezing.

Applications :

• Highly sensitive detection of viral RNA/DNA for deployment in the field of operations.

Objectives:

• Build two video databases, the first in a living lab equipped with a thermal camera and motion sensors, the second in a city environment with thermal and colour information.
• To perform a greyscale analysis of thermal camera video scenes, by extracting 3D skeletons of individuals and semantic segmentation.
• Identify actions that involve individuals in the scene and study the interaction of groups.
• Model and estimate the uncertainty and validity range of the predictions made.

Applications :

• Analysis of scenes filmed by infrared cameras.
• Analysis of the behaviour of people in camouflage or loose clothing. Identification of individuals or groups exhibiting aggressive behaviour.

Objectives:

• Develop wireless network security through advanced statistical signal processing and digital communications algorithms to meet the field constraints of tactical communications.
• Test and make more robust direct sequence spread spectrum techniques under the most severe intentional interference conditions - hostile jamming -.
• Reduce synchronisation errors due to the Doppler effect when communicating entities are moving rapidly.
• Develop wireless network security through advanced statistical signal processing and digital communications algorithms to meet the field constraints of tactical communications.
• Test and make more robust direct sequence spread spectrum techniques under the most severe intentional interference conditions - hostile jamming -.
• Reduce synchronisation errors due to the Doppler effect when communicating entities are moving rapidly.

Applications:

• Secure tactical communications, discreet and resistant to interference
• Improved performance of civil telecom networks - local area networks, internet of things - in interference situations (jammers, multiple access)

Objectives:

• Anticipate the deployment of Blockchain technology to secure exchanges between state entities and private partners in the defence sector.
• Systematically analyse the emergence trajectories of blockchain technology from the European Patent Office databases and reports.
• Adapting the first cumulative structural models for the dissemination of Blockchain technology.

Applications :

• Improvement of the protection of data exchanged between socio‐economic partners in the defence sector. A tool for analysing the emergence and diffusion of the technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution.