Engineering and Numerical Tools

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Engineering and Numerical Tools

The orientations of the Engineering and Digital Tools research theme concern the development of research in the fields of modeling, simulation, optimization and control of complex systems and processes and of Human-Machine interactions in these cyber-physical systems.

Research orientations

These research axes, identified from industrial needs, are part of the application fields targeted by CESI LINEACT, which are the industry of the future and the city of the future.

They deal with various issues such as, for example, the modeling and optimization of building performance, the modeling, simulation and optimization of flexible production systems, the development of decision support tools for the maintenance of industrial systems, the study and integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for human-robot collaboration or intelligent building management, or the modeling and study of human-machine interactions based on augmented reality, virtual reality and digital twins.

In addition, the theme is experiencing a significant evolution of its staff to accompany the thematic development of the training activities of CESI. National and international research policies are undergoing important developments with a better adaptability of digital services to the physical world via an improved collaboration with humans in which digital services support the adaptation effort and allow for a better adaptation of the application deployment phase which can be the object of an upstream design in a virtual environment or a reduced-scale modeling.

All these issues related to the integration and better coupling of digital services in the physical world require the development of specific knowledge around particular advanced techniques.

Axis 1 – Cyber Physical Production System (CPPS)
Axis 2 – Collaborative processes and digital tools
Axis 3 – Sustainable urban systems

The objective of the “Engineering & Digital Tools” team is to conduct research based on multidisciplinary and integrated approaches, particularly in Computer Sciences and Engineering Sciences, combining modelling, optimization, data and usage analysis in order to adress the challenges of the city and the industry of the future.

New axe

These techniques are grouped together in a new axis called “Advanced Techniques for Industry and Construction” which completes the three original axes (1 – Cyber Physical Production System (CPPS), 2 – Collaborative processes and digital tools, 3 – Sustainable urban systems).

In particular, it integrates innovative manufacturing processes around the deployment of the manufacture of complex assemblies designed in virtual environments, applied robotics that allows the interface through actuators or vectors between the virtual world and the physical world. Finally, a last sub-area allows the development of new knowledge on the different stages of the life cycle of multi-material systems (design, assembly, operation, disassembly, …) with scaling and application deployments of materials designed, characterized and modeled in a singular way.

This update of the theme has also been the opportunity for simplifying the organization of the axes (3 sub-axes per axis).

Axis 1 has been restructured for a better readability and Axis 2 is purely digital with different digital services. This organization shows the skills more and more present in AI within the laboratory under the name “Advanced Automation”.
Axis 4 now brings to light different key interfaces in urban systems: sharing of resources between urban units, human interactions with these urban units that consume resources, and finally the interface between the different vectors of mobility of goods and people. The emergence of shared mobility is notably motivated by the integration of CESI LINEACT as a partner of the TIGA Mobility of the Metropolis of Rouen Normandy and the Chair of Mobility and Intelligent Transport.