Plenary Session - Introducing keynotes
David Sadek is VP for Research, Technology & Innovation at Thales, particularly in charge of Artificial Intelligence & data processing. He was VP for Research at IMT (“Institut Mines-Télécom”) and, previously, VP for Research at Orange. Doctor in Computer Science and expert in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, he created and ran at Orange Labs for more than fifteen years the R&D activities and teams on intelligent agents and natural human-machine dialogue. His research work led to the design and implementation of the first worldwide technologies of conversational agents, as well as to ACL inter-agent communication language standard. He also directed several industrial transfer and service deployment programs. He was chairman of program evaluation committee "Digital Contents & Interactions" of the French National Research Agency (ANR). He is or was on numerous national and international research and innovation steering and evaluation committees, such as the steering board of the National Alliance on Digital Science (Allistene), and the scientific councils of Inria and of CNRS institute on “Information and communication science and technology”. He was a leader of FranceIA, the national strategy on Artificial Intelligence, and France representative within the G7 Innovators delegation. He also was a founder of the Ethics commission of Allistene (CERNA).
During nearly ten years, David Sadek had been Orange Emeritus Expert. He got France Télécom Award for Best Technology Innovation, Orange Award for Best Service Innovation, European Customer Relationship Forum Award, and Blondel Medal in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science.
Title : Artificial Intelligence in Radars
Abstract : Antenna digitalization will increasingly enable to design full software-defined radars with more degrees of freedom (scalable front-end, digital beamforming with diverse beam shapes…), enhanced with intelligent resource management and graceful degradation by reconfiguration. Radars will become proactive to achieve more complex missions. They will integrate digital assistants to interact with human operators through intuitive multimodal dialogue.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms (optimization, learning, reasoning…) will foster the development of cognitive functions underlying innovative capabilities as self-adaptation, contextual inference and situation understanding. Coordinated in dense networks, radars will be able to optimize their resources in a collaborative way, potentially fully distributed, with advanced “what-if” capabilities to improve their agility and robustness to defeat new threats (hypersonic & hyper-maneuvering missiles, swarm of drones, stealth mobile objects, slow moving targets…). Such AI-based functions will help improve operational capacity in tactical anticipation.
As a result of radar’s full digital transformation, the radar's digital twin will enable to faster prototyping, algorithm design and AI-based augmented engineering. Thales TrUE AI (Transparent, Understandable and Ethical AI) strategy for a trustable and explainable AI will be also implemented in radar systems. Relying on a hybrid AI (combining model-based and data-driven approaches), it aims at paving the way to the design, the development, the validation and the certification of critical systems involving AI technologies.
Philippe Dreuillet is a 1990 Lille University graduate. He joined ONERA, the French Aerospace Lab, where he began stealth advanced studies. He has shown great interest in the impact of digital technologies on radar evolution since 1999. His work has been applied to various fields such as electronic warfare receivers, wideband radar based on OFDM waveforms or airborne SAR VHF/UHF radars. He has initiated the Hycam research radar concept and was the project manager for the SETHI and RAMSES NG airborne experimental stations. Philippe Dreuillet is currently the Director of Electromagnetism & Radar Department radar at Onera.. He is the author of several essays and patents, more specifically in the field of the Radar Hardware development concept and its applications.
Title : Radar Technical Challenges, from decameter to centimeter wavelengths.
Abstract : ONERA has been involved and remains a major actor in the field of decameter wavelengths radars. In parallel to operating the NOSTRADAMUS sky-wave radar, it has developed several demonstrators of HF surface wave radar in multiple sea shore sites. In regards to the airborne radars, the metric to centimetric radars, on board of the SETHI station, they offer a large variety of applications such as detection through ice, the environmental measurements or the testing of new methods of analysis applied to surveillance. All these radars have in common the benefits engendered by the power of combining new or updated old technologies, therefore significantly increasing their performances in different domains such as full digital radar, multistatism, increased computing power of simulation, deep learning coupled with physical models, advances in metamaterials, carriers diversification impacts or artificial intelligence... Examples drawn from the latest research conducted at ONERA will help illustrate this strong trend.
Plenary Session - Special Keynotes
Ad Stoffelen received the M.Sc. degree in physics from the Technical University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1987 and a Ph.D. in Meteorology on radar scatterometry from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is currently working at Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and responsible for the EUMETSAT MetOp ASCAT wind products and for contributing to the international wind scatterometer constellation. Since 1992 his research interests further include the European Space Agency Aeolus Doppler Wind Lidar mission.
Title : Seas of radar opportunities
Abstract : Indeed, there are many opportunities for satellite RADAR over water surfaces from low to high resolution, based on radar cross-section (NRCS) and/or Doppler, with low or high precision and in both operational or research stages. Generally, geophysical requirements for earth observation (EO) are coupled to technical challenges.
Sea level, wave height, storm surges and tides are part of operational radar applications through satellite altimeters, which are being further developed, e.g., through the EU Sentinel-3. Similarly, ocean vector wind, wind stress and wave variables have resulted in operational applications, in addition to oil spill detection by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Challenges with respect to calibration and spatial processing have been overcome, leading to very accurate, detailed and stable geophysical retrievals. Ongoing technical challenges for earth system modelling at the atmosphere-ocean interface exist in ocean motion, ocean current and bathymetry measurements, in particular in coastal areas. Some of these many challenges will be elaborated at the conference.
Prof. Teng Long received the B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree from Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) in 1995. After graduation he joined the faculty of BIT, where he became a full professor in 2002. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and University College London in 1999 and 2002 respectively. Currently, he serves as the Vice President of BIT. He is a Fellow of IEEE, IET and the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE). He is the president of CIE Signal Processing Society and vice president of CIE Radar Society. His research interests include the fundamental and significant issues of the novel radar system and signal processing. His work includes the novel one-dimensional high resolution imaging radar, two-dimensional synthetic aperture imaging radar and the new technology and application of the real-time signal processing technology in air-to-ground detection.
Title : High-Resolution Radar Signal and Information Processing
Abstract : High-resolution radars utilize wide-band signals to achieve high range resolution and employ synthetic apertures to achieve high angle resolution. They classify and identify targets precisely by providing multi-dimensional high-resolution images with target feature information. High-resolution radars allow more applications of advanced signal processing algorithms to focus on target classification and precise recognition. Under clutter and interference conditions, high-resolution radars offer unique advantages in target detection and tracking. However, these advantages are limited by factors such as reduced radar detection range, complex radar signal processing, and exceedingly huge amount of data, posing problems in urgent need of theoretical and methodological innovations for their solution. In this perspective, this talk introduces the latest research on high-resolution radar signal and information processing in Radar Research Lab, Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). The research mainly focuses on the detection theories, technical breakthroughs and applications in one-dimensional high-resolution ground-to-air, air-to-ground radar and high-resolution distributed radar.
Frédéric Boyer is with the Department of Automatic Control, IMT-Atlantique, Nantes, France, and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes (LS2N). His current research interests include bio-inspired locomotion and underwater electric sensing. Dr. Boyer received the Monpetit Prize from the Academy of Science of Paris in 2007 for his work in dynamics and the French "La Recherche Prize” in 2014, for his works on artificial electric sense. He has coordinated several national projects and one European FP7-FET project on a reconfigurable eel-like robot able to navigate with electric sense.
Title : Artificial electric sense for underwater robotics: state of the art and perspectives
Abstract : Fish that can electrocute their prey have been known since antiquity and inspired Volta to design the first battery. However, the ability of other so-called weakly electric fish to perceive their near surroundings by sensing through a dense array of transcutaneous electroreceptors the perturbations of a self-generated electric field, was only discovered in the 1950's. Remarkably, these fish are able to detect, localize and analyze objects in confined environments and turbid waters, where neither vision nor sonar can work. Named Active Electrolocation by biologists, this perceptual ability recently has drawn the attention of roboticists with the aim of designing a novel generation of underwater robots able to navigate and operate in harsh environmental conditions. In this perspective, this keynote attempts to give a comprehensive overview of the recent progresses in artificial e-sense for underwater robotics. Starting from the fish, we will progressively move toward robotics and address several issues ranging from reactive autonomous navigation, localization and shape recognition, to haptic feedback teleoperation. While progressing, we will attempt to reveal further insights on how nature can inspire engineering.
Seiko Shirasaka, Professor, Graduate School of System Design and Management, KEIO University
Dr.Seiko Shirasaka earned a Master’s degree in Astronautics from University of Tokyo and Doctoral degree in Systems Engineering from KEIO university. He worked for Mitsubishi Electric Corporation as a space systems engineer for 15 years. He had been an Associate Professor at KEIO university since 2008 and he has been a Professor since 2017. He was a program manager on Japnese government funded program from 2015 through 2019.
Title : 100kg-class X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite System for On-Demand Observation
Abstract : During emergency situations such a natural or man-made disaster, rapid responses by social infrastructure are essential in order to minimize damage.
The Cabinet office of Japan has funded a technology-driven innovation program, “ImPACT,” which stands for “Impulsing Paradigm Change through Disruptive Technology Program.” Under the ImPACT program, we developed the key technology of Small Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite system capable of on-demand launching and quick observation from FY2015 to FY2018. Our aimed system enables“ all-time and all-point observation” in whole world under all condition, even at night and under rainy/cloudy/stormy weather. There are two keys of this program. One was to realize achieve the compact SAR, selection of deployable and passive slot array antenna approach rather than the two major methods used worldwide (active phased array antenna system approach and parabola antenna system approach) to achieve the world’s most lightweight, most compact SAR system. The other one is to realize achieve instant, on-demand observations, achievement of an autonomous operation. The new approach of SAR design” realizes an ultra-lightweight and highly compact, 100kg-class, satellite system with 1m-class spatial resolution SAR sensor. Considering future business prospects, the mass production cost around 5 million dollar is targeted in this program, which will be one-tenth of conventional systems.
For the social implementation of this technologies, we set up a start-up “Synspective”. We will launch the first demonstration satellite in this fiscal year. And we will launch six satellite in three yesars.
