Robotics for Exploration (Robex) team

This research team focusing on autonomous robotics for exploration is an authority in France in the field of marine environment observations. Their research is mainly established at ENSTA Bretagne where the specialism has developed steadily over the past 15 years. The team is part of the Lab-STICC / "AI & Oceans" Department.

Objectives and applications: design intelligent, autonomous robots for exploring the environment – particularly the marine environment

Mobile robotics has grown significantly, usually in structured and already mapped environments. In other situations – unknown and unstructured environments – such as distant planets, volcanoes, deep caves, irradiated areas, underground water veins, burning buildings or the sea depths – the nature of robotics changes.

Because it is difficult for humans to intervene safely in these circumstances, where remote operation is usually no longer possible, robotics becomes essential. Robots must therefore be equipped with maximum autonomy and intelligence to accomplish a mission. This is called "exploratory robotics", as the robot has to map its environment, make decisions, locate itself and be able to return home.
 

Research areas: design methodological tools of autonomous robotics for exploration

The ROBEX team seeks to develop methodological tools for designing intelligent algorithms which enable robots to accomplish an exploratory mission autonomously. Bearing certain hypotheses about the environment and dynamics of the robot in mind, the team endeavors to guarantee such properties as:

  • avoidance of a forbidden zone, 
  • compliance with constraints on the state of the system,
  • integrity of the location 
  • and the ability to return to the starting point.

The team strives to take any type of uncertainty into rigorous account, obtain theoretically elegant solutions and make convincing experimental validations.

Methodological Tools

The emphasis is on:

  • set theory,
  • abstract interpretation, 
  • nonlinear robot control and Bayesian filtering. 

Collaborations

  • Companies: Kopadia, Thales, Forssea, RT-sys, iXblue, ECA-robotics, Subsea-Tech, Orange-Labs, Pilgrim, Texys Marine, Oxxius.
  • Institutions: DGA, DRASSM, Ifremer, EDF, Brittany Region, Shom.
  • Laboratories: LIRMM, IRISA, Polytechnique, LS2N.
  • Research networks: GDR Macs and GDR robotique.
Examples of research papers and applications
Drifting robots

Design drifting robots capable of traveling very long distances in the ocean using ocean currents as a means of propulsion.

Thomas Le Mezo’s thesis, defended in 2019 and awarded the DGA 2021 thesis prize, has paved the way to the development of the first prototypes in this area.

Find out more:

Towed magnetometer for underwater archeology using robotics

The subject of Joris Tillet’s thesis (he won a DGA and Brittany Region grant), defended in 2021, bore on "Safe Localization and Control of a Towed Sensor"

# Keywords: underwater location, nonlinear control, interval analysis, fuzzy logic, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, towed sensor.

This thesis contributes to technological progress in underwater archeology using robotics, not least in the search for wrecks. It has benefited from the research conducted by the Department of Underwater Archeological Research (DRASSM) to find La Cordelière, which sank off the Brest coast in 1512 and whose artillery battery is still buried, somewhere, beneath the sediments.

The robotic system proposed entails towing a magnetometer likely to detect the ferromagnetic materials of the wreck. The sensor cannot be embedded directly as it is sensitive to the disruptions of the robot. This is why it is offset via a cable and towed by the drone. 

Two problems are studied in this context. 

  • The first is associated with control of the magnetometer’s position when it is only possible to act on the towing robot. A feedback linearization method is therefore used to build a controller. This controller is then validated under certain state constraints using interval analysis tools. 
  • The second problem concerns reliable localization underwater. The means for grasping the uncertainties and outliers collected by an acoustic sensor are therefore studied. 

Initial findings can be obtained thanks to interval analysis, and fuzzy logic rounds off the approach by providing more flexibility in the prioritization of constraints. Finally, trials are presented with various robots, especially localization of an ROV in a pool.
 

Inspection and maintenance of offshore installations

Subject of the thesis by Auguste Bourgeois (Cifre Forssea Robotics) defended in 2021: “Safe & collaborative autonomous docking of a robot on a mobile platform”

# Keywords: underwater docking, stability of dynamic systems, hybrid systems, constraint programming, guaranteed integration

Given the increasing number of offshore facilities, there is a need for reliable autonomous robots which can perform inspection and maintenance missions, while keeping operational expenses down. To decrease the likelihood of an accident during a mission, mathematical tools can be used to demonstrate, a priori, its feasibility. In this thesis, new methods based on a set-membership approach are presented in this regard.

  • First, we propose a new method for analyzing the stability of an uncertain discrete, continuous or hybrid system.
  • Next, we present an approach drawing inspiration from reachability analysis, for which we have developed a new constraint programming tool for implementing differential constraints.
  • Both these approaches can be used to predict a robot’s behavior before it is even deployed.
  • These tools are illustrated by realistic examples from the fields of localization and control, applied to the problem of underwater docking. Moreover, the Computer-Assisted Proofs in Dynamics (CAPD) library is presented in a robotics context via practical examples.
Underwater exploratory robot: a sonar as the only exteroceptive sensor

Design and produce an underwater robot able to explore its environment alone, without surfacing to collect GPS, with a sonar as the only exteroceptive sensor.

Autonomous exploration using an echo-sounder

In an underwater environment, perform isobath tracking in order to explore and come back, with a simple echo-sounder.

Group of robots

Perform the capture of a robot by several robots in an uncertain and unstructured environment.

Prof. Luc Jaulin, research professor at ENSTA Bretagne / Lab-STICC in robotics for exploration:

We seek to represent and propagate uncertainties as rigorously as possible without making uncontrolled approximations, such as those induced by linearization or discretization. Uncertain variables may be the environment map, sensor data, robot trajectory, past or future decision making, robot dynamics and human interventions. The modeling of these different types of uncertainty requires reflection and the development of tools capable of meeting our objectives.

contact

Luc Jaulin
Full professor
IT Departement
Lab-STICC Laboratory / AI & Ocean Department / Robex Team
+33 (0)2 98 34 89 10

AI & Ocean Department

The activities of the "AI & Ocean" Department are characterized by a strong interdisciplinarity. They focus on AI applied to the marine environment, in interaction with other scientific and technological fields such as offshore technologies, observations from space, physical oceanography, hydrography, marine ecology and maritime surveillance.

Research areas

The scientific objective of the AI & Ocean Department takes the ocean into account as a complex system, with physical, biological and ecological interactions, as well as human activities (maritime traffic, coastal planning, marine resources, environmental monitoring, etc.). 

The AI & Ocean Department is organized around three specific research areas, to which the Department’s three research teams contribute: 

  • AI & perception of marine environments (ROBEX, OSE and M3 teams), 
  • AI & robotics for exploration (ROBEX team) 
  • AI & ocean and marine data (M3 and OSE teams).

 

Applications

  • Knowledge of the marine environment
  • Environmental monitoring
  • Management and safety of offshore human activities
  • Maritime & coastal planning

 

Organized into 3 research teams 

ENSTA Bretagne contributes to the 3 teams:

contact

Pierre Bosser
Associate Professor in Hydrography, Oceanography
IT Department
Lab-STICC Laboratory / AI&Ocean Department / M3 Team

Marine Mapping & Metrology (M3)

A team of ENSTA Bretagne researchers make a significant contribution to Lab-STICC’s "M3" scientific project. Indeed, the campus boasts an extensive skill set for improving, expanding and enhancing the reliability of marine environment mapping. This yields insight into the physics of measurement, from its capture to its interpretation.

Research areas for understanding the marine environment

With the increase in insightful, precise and heterogeneous information about the marine environment come efforts to improve the processing of these countless datasets from varied observation systems (underwater, marine and spatial). Only judicious, joint use of this metadata can enable a faithful description of the environment.

To that end, the team explores different aspects of marine data analysis:

  • design of the observation system through the assembly of sensor bricks, 
  • consideration of the physical reality of this system and its measurements,
  • qualification, analysis, interpretation and representation of the data acquired.

Examples of applications

  • Optimizing hydrographic survey systems: by machine learning of massive bathymetric data
  • Observing and describing the atmosphere by modeling the atmospheric propagation of GNSS signals in the marine environment 
  • Characterization of the quality of water column estimations from multispectral data

Expertise harnessed for analyzing marine data

  • marine acoustics 
  • passive acoustics
  • marine data processing
  • marine imaging
  • machine learning
  • data science
  • big data
  • sensor systems

Collaborations

Here are some examples of partners with whom this research is conducted.

  • Companies: Hytech Imaging, Naval Group, Thales, ECA-robotics, CIDCO, iXblue
  • Institutions: DGA, Shom, IGN, Ifremer
  • Academia: Université Laval, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Centre de Géomatique du Québec
M3 research projects on description of the marine environment
CALHYB project: HD imaging in coastal shallow water

Coastal areas vulnerable to climate change, evolving coastlines and the monitoring of flood-prone areas call for regular measurements and suitable imaging and measurement systems. This is the purpose of the CALHYB research project on which ENSTA Bretagne is bringing its imaging expertise to bear for the observation of the marine environment.

What is innovative about this project? A ground-breaking pair of sensors embedded on an aerial drone, for HD imaging  

>> read the article on the subject

MAP-IO project: climate observatory in the Indian and Southern Oceans

The "MAP-IO" scientific program aims at setting up a climate observatory aboard a French research vessel (the Marion Dufresne) for studying the Indian and Southern Oceans.

How is the school contributing? By developing the system for continuously measuring atmospheric humidity, using GNSS signal analysis methods.

To deduce the level of humidity in the air, the team is tapping into the phenomena whereby the propagation of GNSS signals is delayed because of the water vapor in the atmosphere.
 

>> read the article on the subject

contact

Pierre Bosser
Associate Professor in Hydrography, Oceanography
IT Department
Lab-STICC Laboratory / AI&Ocean Department / M3 Team

HOLI-D Blue project

HOLI-D Blue: holistic engineering education scheme for understanding and addressing the maritime environmental and societal challenges

Actualités du projet

Journée d’étude internationale HOLI-D Blue – jeudi 13 juin 2024 : Transformations systémiques et coopération

Coopérer pour (se) former, (se) professionnaliser, (s') engager au service de transformations socio-écologiques dans le maritime

HOLI-D Blue: holistic engineering education scheme for understanding and addressing the maritime environmental and societal challenges

Building on the work of ENSTA Bretagne’s education and professionalization of engineers (FPI) research team, the HOLI-D Blue project is aimed at updating the sustainability education given to future engineers hired by businesses operating in the sea and coastal professions, through the practical uptake of its recent research findings, by designing a concrete process in the context of an engineering school (école d'ingénieurs).

One of the main objectives of this project is to improve the contribution that higher education curricula (at universities and graduate and postgraduate schools, grandes écoles) make to sustainability and social responsibility by empowering maritime engineering students to identify and better understand maritime environmental and societal issues and challenges, so as to tackle them and act in a socially relevant and responsible way through the acquisition of appropriate skills for addressing complex concerns.

With that in mind, the HOLI-D Blue project thus sets out to jointly develop a cross-cutting and interdisciplinary "Maritime and sustainability" option as part of the initial syllabus followed by students embarking on a doctorate in ISblue community institutions, starting with ENSTA Bretagne for the pilot scheme.

Logo Isblue

The HOLI-D Blue project is co-financed by the interdisciplinary graduate school specialised in marine science and technology, ISBLUE.

Background

Educating engineers capable of taking up the challenges shaping the ecological transition, in the framework of the sustainable development goals, is at once:

  • An increasing expectation on the part of students joining an engineering school (école d’ingénieurs) 
  • An increasing demand on the part of businesses, in terms of knowledge and skills
  • An increasingly common objective in engineering courses worldwide
  • An increasingly important criterion on the part of accrediting bodies
  • An ambition of the institutions belonging to the ISblue community, not least as regards the maritime environmental challenges and social responsibility
  • A strategic objective of ENSTA Bretagne, enshrined in its 2022-2026 Performance and Objectives Contract 

Challenges and aims

HOLI-D Blue is grounded in a cross-cutting educational framework linking all types and stages of education, both formal and non-formal, academic and non-academic, right across a course of study. The aim is to empower students with the intellectual tools and technical skills necessary to tackle these environmental and societal challenges of the maritime sphere, by first understanding the latter then taking action with greater awareness of the impact of their activities.

In that respect, the focus of HOLI-D Blue is the joint development of open and flexible educational approaches with all of the stakeholders involving in engineering education (lecturers and research professors, students, socio-economic partners including local businesses and student associations), which can be adapted to other contexts (engineering schools and partner universities), so as to:

  • Make educational improvements to syllabus contents (increase technical, human and social skills and knowledge), both at course level (strengthening the relevance of the teaching, particularly by increasing interaction between the various modules and the academic and professional application of skills acquired) and at institution level (update practices and promote the institutions involved)
  • Enable ENSTA Bretagne students who want to, to enhance their studies thanks to this option and, ultimately, to include all first-year students in the awareness stages.
  • Provide partner educational institutions of the ISblue community with the results of this pilot scheme, help to roll it out in their courses and/or forge partnerships between several courses/institutions

contact

Catherine Adam
HOLI-D Blue Project Coordinator
Associate Professor, FoAP Laboratory