The goals ?

- To discuss about new technologies linked to autonomous systems (flying, driving, diving);

- To share information about current stages of research/R&D

- To link companies, universities and research centers and make them work together.

To whom ?

Companies, universities, research centers active in the topics mentioned above. From Belgium and abroad.

Program:

8:30-9:00: welcome & coffee

9:00-9:30: Keynote speech by Julien Marzat (ONERA): Development of more autonomous UAVs from a Research-Industry perspective

9:30-10:30 Propulsion systems, Batteries & Energy management

- Patrick Hendrick & Daniel Castroviejo (ULB): Distributed electric propulsion to increase endurance of fixed-wing drones

- Renaud De Landtsheer (CETIC) : Optimizing complex missions for autonomous multi-copters.

We present a model of autonomy of multi-copters and its application. It can optimize complex missions of multicopters such as selectively treating crops with phytosanitary products within the limit of their battery. It scales to large size problem and runs on top of the OscaR.cbls optimization engine.

- Christophe Schram (VKI): Simulation and measurements of the acoustic levels, sound quality and psycho-acoustic annoyance of a quadcopter drone

- Emanuele Garone (ULB): Fast-Charging protocols for Li-Ion Batteries: from the lab to the real world

10:30-11:00 Coffee break

11:00-12:00 Data processing & Connectivity

- Sebastien Dupont (CETIC) : Integrate development, security and operation for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications of autonomous systems

The increasing role of autonomous cyber physical systems (CPS) in critical infrastructures and in our everyday life raises various security concerns. The DevSecOps approach combines security with development and operation activities by design, in order to detect and remediate security issues as soon as possible. We propose an implementation of DevSecOps to protect cooperative and autonomous vehicles (rovers and drones

- Henry-Louis Guillaume (ULB Panorama) : 3D Acquisition Missions with UAV : The Need of Data Agregation

- Shady Attia (ULiège): Multiscale assessment of urban heat island effects and vegetation by coupling satellite remote sensing and drone LIDAR

12:00-13:00 Embedded intelligence

- John Pyrgies (UNamur) : - ‘George’ , a Cognitive Architecture to design Certifiable Intelligent Avionic Agents

- Dora Novak, Sihem Tebbani, Alain Vande Wouwer (CentraleSupélec/UMons): Multi-UAV cooperative trajectory planning using distributed model predictive control

When employing multiple UAVs for mapping tasks in agriculture, it is necessary to guarantee high efficiency by having an optimal trajectory for each drone. UAVs need to work cooperatively and complete the mission in the shortest possible time. Constraints such as energy consumption and restricted flight zone often need to be considered. One of the most critical challenges in autonomous flight is to compute the trajectory dynamically in real-time. Trajectory planning performed in a distributed manner using model predictive control can significantly decrease the computational effort and ensure a fast response. When finding the optimal trajectory, each drone needs to consider the overall mission and criteria, such as time for completion or battery usage and the position of the neighboring drones.

- Emmanuel Jean (Multitel) : Artificial Intelligence for critical autonomous systems: technical impacts of EU requirements

- Guilherme Pimentel (UMons) : Sensor fusion for pose estimation of six degrees of freedom systems : a stewart platform experimental validation

13:00-14:00 Networking lunch, exhibition & poster session

14:00-15:00 BVLOS, Collision avoidance systems & Air traffic integration

- Gaëtan Permentiers (UCLouvain): Autonomous In-flight Hand: A preliminary study for puppetry with a drone

This project involves the articulation of traditional puppetry and autonomous drones to create a performance with flying characters. The first action is creating and automating a puppet robotic arm attached to a drone. We will present the implementation of the drone's trajectory and the arm's predefined set of movements, synchronized using the Qualysis camera motion system from ID2Move.

- Cédric Ameloot & Alexandre Papy (ERM-ABAL): How ballistics can help solving the unintended autonomous drone flights problem?

- Gilles Delansnay (UMons): Safe flight envelope protection and collision avoidance in UAV using constrained zonotopes

15:00-16:00 Companies’ technological challenges

- Dynali (Francis Huchette & Lionel Degrove)

- Stratos (Jean-Philippe Crépin)

- Skeydrone (Didier Decaestecker)

- Otto (Eric Piraux)

- Sagita (Hubert Antoine)

- Cybrid Thrust (Matteo Baronio)

16:00-17:00 Networking drink & demo