Wednesday September 4 saw the official signing of the SWARM IA Chair, in the presence of Damien Lasou, Managing Director of Expleo France, a global player in engineering, technology and consulting, Denis Bertrand, Director of ESTACA, a post-baccalaureate engineering school specializing in transport and sustainable mobility, and Jean-Michel Fourgous, President of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines conurbation.Denis Bertrand, Director of ESTACA, a post-baccalaureate engineering school specializing in transport and sustainable mobility, and Jean-Michel Fourgous, President of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines conurbation, committed to supporting forward-looking technological projects in the region.
This signature marks the start of a strategic collaboration between the academic, industrial and regional worlds, in the service of innovation for more intelligent, collaborative drones in the public interest.

SWARM IA: swarms of drones and collaborative robots

The use of drones in industrial applications such as infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring and natural disaster management is booming. But in certain situations, such as a fire in a confined environment or a toxic gas leak, it's necessary to act quickly, in a coordinated, autonomous and intelligent way.

This is what the SWARM AI Chair is all about: designing swarms of drones capable of sharing data, making decisions in real time and interacting with their environment. Thanks to the integration of an AI-powered digital twin, the drones will be able to predict the evolution of observed phenomena (smoke, heat, gas dispersion...), optimize their trajectories and better support human intervention.

A Chair structured around 3 major programs

The SWARM AI Chair is based on three major technological pillars which, together, will enable swarms of drones capable of understanding their environment and reacting in real time to complex situations to cooperate:

• Collaborative axis: enabling drones and robots to cooperate by fusing heterogeneous data. The challenge is to enable UAVs to share a common vision of their space-time environment and mission, thanks to data fusion and consensus algorithms, to evolve in a coordinated, autonomous and secure way, even without a network.

• Artificial Intelligence: harnessing AI to understand and interpret the environment and optimize missions. The challenge is to deploy an AI solution that enables drones and robots to understand what they see, adapt to unforeseen circumstances and optimize their missions in real time, thanks to learning models, like an on-board collective brain.
• Digital twin axis : simulating the environment dynamically The challenge is to create a virtual copy of the real, dynamic situations in which drones will be called upon to act, by modelling the evolution of the environment.to act, by modeling the evolution of phenomena (smoke, heat, wind) in order to optimize their trajectory and accurately adapt missions in real time.

" The SWARM IA Chair embodies a strong ambition for Expleo and its innovation teams: to bring out a new generation of drones and robots capable of working in teams, interacting intelligently in real time in complex industrial contexts. We have great faith in this partnership with ESTACA's research faculty and future engineering graduates. We are confident that the combination of intelligent sensors, on-board AI and digital twins will enable swarms of heterogeneous drones and robots to meet major challenges with greater responsivenessWe are confident that the combination of intelligent sensors , on-board AI and digital twins will enable swarms of heterogeneous drones and robots to meet major challenges with greater responsiveness , safety and efficiency, such as tracking the spread of a fire, detecting a gas leak or inspecting critical infrastructures," said Damien Lasou, Expleo's Managing Director for France.

" For an engineering school like ESTACA, which has over 100 years' experience in mobility issues, and in particular over 20 years' experience in connected, intelligent and sustainable mobility, working on a project involving swarms of drones and heterogeneous robots with environmental applications is a remarkable opportunity .s connected, intelligent and sustainable mobility, working on a project involving swarms of drones and heterogeneous robots with environmental applications is a remarkable opportunity. The SWARM IA Chair will mobilize our research expertise for joint projects that will also benefit our students' training in AI and digital twins applied to transport ", said Denis Bertrand, Director of ESTACA.

"When two major players in our region - Expleo in the field of engineering and technology services for manufacturers, and ESTACA in the field of higher education and research - join forces to develop a mobility project to support the development of the local economy, they have a real chance of success.education and research, the ESTACA engineering school, join forces to develop a mobility project serving the environment in the broadest sense, we can only be proud.We can only be proud to be at their side, and look forward to seeing the results in the months and years to come. said Jean-Michel Fourgous, Chairman of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines conurbation.