Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

Informal International Partners

In the following we are highlighting only some selected collaborations, partners with whom there are: signed MoU's, researchers exchanges, softwares and hardwares exchanges, scientific close collaboration, etc.

• NAIST – Japan The RITS team has a close cooperation with NAIST (Nara institute of Science and Technology), Japan since 2009. Based on this collaboration NAIST and Inria established the MoU agreement to accelerate and strengthen future research collaborations and the exchange of researchers and students (4 Japanese researchers were hosted by IMARA/RITS since 2012).

• University of Zaragoza – Spain The team has strong collaborations with University of Zaragoza, Spain, especially the Intelligent Networks and Information Technologies group (INIT) directed by Prof. Francisco J. Martinez Domingues. Professor Martinez and Professor Piedad had a 3 months stay at Inria in summer 2014 during which closer collaborations and joint publications and a workshop co-organization was agreed on.

• CNIT (Consorzio Nazionale Inter-unviversitario per le Telecomunicazioni), Italy, directed by Professor Paolo Pagano, and University of Western Ontario, especially the department of the Electrical & Computer Engineering.

• SwRI – USA: Since 2007, a collaboration agreement exists with the Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio, Texas, USA) for the joint development of autonomous vehicle technologies, focusing on the areas of perception, intelligence, command and control, communications, platforms and safety. SwRI is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit applied research and development organizations in the U.S. The partnership conducted joint researches and exchanged intellectual properties to foster rapid technology and system advancements in vehicle autonomy. A joint vehicle demonstration took place in 2009 during the ITS World Congress in London.

• Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) – China: Professor Ming Yang is now leading Department of Automation in SJTU. Previously he has been a Post-doc fellow at Inria (IMARA/RITS team) from 2003 to 2005. Thus he shares RITS research areas and his main research activities are around the development of intelligent Cybercars. Several researchers and graduate students from SJTU were hired by RITS in the past. Both teams are partners of several joint French-Asian collaborative projects (e.g., CityHome, PAMM,...). Prof. Ming Yang Lab, RITS and e-Motion are currently discussing seriously the creation of an Inria International Research Lab., a common lab focusing on the topic of mobile robotics (including Intelligent Vehicles and Assistive Robotics). M. Hao Li, recently awarded PhD from Mines ParisTech under the supervision of Fawzi Nashashibi (RITS), is also a former student of Prof. Yang. He will be helping in the coordination of this new partnership project.

• MICA LAB – Vietnam: a growing partnership is under construction with MICA Lab under the co-direction of M. Eric Castelli. Partners in joint French-Asian projects, RITS and MICA lab have submitted an application to the Vietnamese Program 911 to support the financing of a joint PhD thesis.

• Institut du transport avancé du Québec (ITAQ) – Canada ITAQ wishes to conduct a project on the guidance of electric and hybrid semi-autonomous and autonomous applications for off-road vehicles. They want to develop this project in close collaboration with several Quebec companies and universities / colleges in Quebec (University of Sherbrooke-CRVI), France (Inria) and the United States (MIT). ITAQ holds expertise in electric vehicles but wants to develop its capacity for research in robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, etc. For this reason, a partnership is under construction (MoU) with Inria and especially with RITS to identify all the ways in which we could work together closely in order to transfer knowledge and expertise.

• International Chaire “GAT”: Inria-RITS, Mines ParisTech, EPFL, Univ. of Berkeley (PATH Program) and Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (SJTU) are the academic partners of the international Chaire GAT, funded and supported by: Valeo Group, SAFRAN Group and MPSA Group (Peugeot-Citroën). A recent NDA has been signed recently. This Chaire will promote and fund academic activities related to Ground Automated Transportation and autonomous driving.

• Technical University of Sophia – Bulgaria: RITS is conducting a close partnership with the Technical University of Sophia (Department of Mechanical Engineering). Since 2009, Professor Plamen Petrov has been a visiting professor at Inria. He contributed in conducting common advanced researches with RITS researchers in the field of dynamic modeling and adaptive motion control for vehicles and robots. Joint works have been also driven to develop and validate platooning concepts for normal speed driving of automated vehicles. This collaboration will continue with further scientific challenges to tackle especially in the field of vehicle control and motion planning.

Participation In other International Programs

• STIC-Asia – French-Asian cooperation: in the context of the Asian-French projects CityHome and PAMM, very close collaboration were driven between Inria's IMARA/RITS and E-Motion project-teams and Asian laboratories such as: NTU (Singapore), Dept. of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Graduate School of Science and Technology Kumamoto University (Japan), Department of Automation of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU University, China) and the Information and Communication Engineering and the Intelligent Systems Research Center at the SungKyunKwan University (SKKU), (Korea). Two cooperation projects were conducted together: CityHome (ended in 2011) and PAMM (ended in 2014). A new collaborative project has been recently accepted under the coordination of F. Nashashibi, head of RITS (SIM-Cities project (Sustainable Intelligent Mobility for smart Cities)).

• ECOS NORD – Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela): RITS and University of Simon Bolivar have started an official privileged cooperation under the framework of the ECOS Nord international Program. This program started effectively in 2014 with the expected visit of two researchers and a PhD student from each institute to the other institute. Collaborations between our institutions started already in 2012. Since this date, one researcher and 7 engineers (trainees) from SBU made several months stay each at RITS. They all worked in the field of intelligent control.