Digital twins, digital doubles – what exactly do these terms mean? Raksmey Phan, an engineer at the Mines Saint-Étienne Centre for Biomedical and Health Engineering (CIS)[1], talks to us about the advantages and advances offered by these new tools, as well as the issues involved.   What does a digital twin refer to? Raksmey Phan: If you have a digital, …

Turbulence is a mysterious phenomenon in fluid mechanics. Although it has been observed and studied for centuries, it still holds secrets that physicists and mathematicians strive to unlock. Guillaume Balarac is part of this research community. A researcher at Grenoble INP (at the LEGI Geophysical and Industrial Flows Laboratory), he uses and improves simulations to understand turbulent flows better. His …

A recent winner of a CNRS Bronze medal, Romain Quey is a materials science researcher at the Georges Friedel[1] laboratory at Mines Saint-Étienne. He focuses especially on the deformation of metallic polycrystalline materials. In the following interview for I’MTech, he presents his research, between synchrotron radiation and digital simulation.     Could you define what a polycrystalline material is? Romain …

Humans are big consumers of sand, to the extent that this now valuable resource is becoming increasingly scarce. Being in such high demand, it is extracted in conditions that aren’t always respectful of the environment. With the increasing scarcity of sand and the sometimes devastating consequences of mining at beaches, it is becoming crucial to find alternatives. Isabelle Cojan and …

Maurizio Filippone, Professor at EURECOM, Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) We are currently witnessing a rapidly growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in our everyday lives, which has the potential to translate into a variety of societal changes, including improvements to economy, better living conditions, easier access to education, well-being, and entertainment. Such a much anticipated future, however, is tainted with issues …

On January 10th, the AI4EU project (Artificial Intelligence for the European Union), an initiative of the European Commission, was launched in Barcelona. This 3-year project led by Thalès, with a budget of €20 million, aims to bring Europe to the forefront of the world stage in the field of artificial intelligence. While the main goal of AI4EU is to gather …

The H2020 ANIMATAS project, launched in January 2018 for a four-year period, seeks to introduce robots with social skills in schools to assist teaching staff. Chloé Clavel, a researcher in affective computing at Télécom ParisTech, one of the project’s academic partners, answered our questions on her research in artificial intelligence for the ANIMATAS project.   What is the overall focus …

Ioan Mihai Miron’s research in spintronics focuses on new magnetic systems for storing information. The research carried out at Spintec laboratory in Grenoble is still young, having begun in 2011. However, it already represents major potential in addressing the current limits facing technology in terms of our computers’ memory. The research also offers a solution to problems experienced by magnetic …

Female students have deserted computer science schools and women seem mostly absent from companies in this sector. The culprit: the common preconception that female computer engineers are naturally less competent than their male counterparts.  The MOOC entitled Gender Diversity in IT Professions*, launched on 8 March 2018, looks at how sexist stereotypes are constructed, often insidiously. Why are women now …

Mohamed Daoudi, IMT Lille Douai – Institut Mines-Télécom Welcome to the new era: that of facial biometrics. The launch of the iPhone X, a smartphone featuring Face ID facial recognition, demonstrated that this technology has now reached full maturity. This became possible with the introduction of miniature 3D sensors with high-level computing power, combined with extremely efficient learning algorithms such …