Driving automation, either level 3 (including unplanned manual control recovery) or level 4 (fully automated driving on specific road sections), introduces new safety and acceptability issues. In order to improve road safety by integrating advanced safety technologies, we must ensure that this new technology takes into account the needs and expectations of the drivers, on the one hand, and the predicable changes in user behavior, on the other hand. A Human Factors working group, bringing together the main French actors of driving automation, has been set up within the NFI plan (investment plan for the future) “autonomous driving” (http://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/PDF /nouvelle-france- industrielle-sept-2014.pdf) to prioritize these issues. AutoConduct project aims to design a new Human-Machin Interaction (HMI) based on needs analyses and adapted to the driver’s condition in response to priorities identified by this working group. For this purpose, the current project will offer advanced monitoring of the driver by combining different diagnoses (physical state defined by the posture, internal states defined by emotions and cognitive load, and perceptive state defined by visual strategies) to adapt the management of interactions between the driver and the vehicle automation in real time. Use cases examined in the project will investigate transitions from manual to automated driving, and vice versa as well as transitions from automated driving to manual. HMI management and acceptability in specific use cases (e.g. safety maneuvering process initiated by the system) will also be investigated. The advanced driver monitoring system and the interface developed by the project will be integrated in two instrumented vehicles. A wizard of Oz instrumented vehicle (i.e. the active controls are managed by a professional driver hidden from the driver’s view) will integrate driver monitoring and feedback interaction to test HMI acceptability and robustness of diagnostics on public roads. A second instrumented vehicle will integrate the entire system, including active controls of the speed and direction of the vehicle, to test the acceptability and robustness of HMI in a controlled environment (i.e. test track). The results of these evaluations will contribute to improve the safety and the effectiveness of the design of automated vehicle as well as providing inputs and recommendations for driver training on automated driving. The originality of this project is to (1) adopt a user-centric approach based on the needs of human factors and ergonomics (2) take into account acceptability (a priori and after experience with the system) at the early, design stages of automated vehicle, which, until now, were developed primarily based on technological criterion, (3) treat the driver’s state through objective measures of indicators on three dimensions: physical, perceptual, and internal (attentional and emotional), (4) develop a progressively shared vehicle control (i.e. cooperation) based on a physiologically valid sensorimotor control model. This type of user-centric approach, already adopted by the Humanist Network of Excellence "Human centered design for ITS", has proven to be effective for other applications dedicated to the driver in the development of prototypes. It will, thus, consist in applying a user-centered approach to the field of automated driving and developing validation methodologies of adaptive strategies in naturalistic conditions. The current project is following ABV, PARTAGE, and CocoVeA projects (focusing on level 2 of automation) and capitalizes the results of the European project ACROSS in the field of pilot monitoring applied to aeronautics.

Moving towards Smart Manufacturing is a key challenge for the 4.0 Industry. This involves using digitized processes and technologies to enable significant adaptability and optimize the performance of processes and products. In this context, the control of the functional properties of surfaces, and particularly of the surface appearance, constitutes an important lever of added value. Many scientific and technological challenges are associated with this issue. The objective is, by quantifying the visual properties of manufactured surfaces at a roughness scale, to objectify a subjective, unconscious and complex process of sensory perception that integrates a wide range of previous representations. The approach proposed in the RTI4.0 project consists in implementing a measurement of the angular and spectral component of the re?ectance of surfaces according to the principle of the RTI technique (Reflectance transformation Imaging). The information obtained is multidimensional, allowing to estimate both apperance descriptors associated with the distribution of measured local luminances, but also geometric descriptors (altitudes, slopes and directional curvatures) through the estimation of stereo-photometric models. The challenges associated with this approach are numerous and multifactorial. The research actions envisaged mainly concern, on the instrumental level, the development of new RTI acquisition approaches (multimodal, adaptive, multiscale), and on the methodological level, the development of methods for the analysis of the properties of surface states allowing the implementation of a functional control of the appearance of manufactured surfaces.

Locomotion with a manual wheelchair (MWC) submits the upper-limbs of the manual wheelchair users (MWU) to an important stress, which varies according to the environment. To assist MWU in selecting the paths that preserve their upper limbs, a cost reflecting the physical demand of the successive situations along the possible paths must be attributed. In the current state of knowledge and accessibility standards, an obstacle has no graduation and can only be marked as crossable or not, which cannot reflect, neither the heterogeneity of the situations, nor the link between their accessibility and the physical and technical abilities of the MWU. To go beyond these limitations, this project aims at defining biomechanical costs that can be attributed to the environmental situations, and that could be implemented in future optimal path selection algorithms. This will make it possible to provide MWU with individualized paths taking into account their individual capacities. To do so, a musculoskeletal model will be developed to quantify various biomechanical quantities that will serve as input data for the definition of the biomechanical costs. These costs will be computed for various situations, reproduced in a realistic MWC locomotion simulator developed in the framework of this proposal. Such a project will provide original and useful data for accessibility evaluation, planning of urban development services and assistance adaptation. It will also be the basis for further work on MWU evaluation and paths characterization to provide personalized cost-optimal paths.

Dependence (5th risk) is a major issue in our societies. This risk is related to several simultaneous phenomena: an aging population, increasing life expectancy, aging populations with disabilities, obesity, increased frequency of disabling disease with age, etc.. The inability to move is a component of dependency. Currently there is no appropriate solution to avoid sitting position in thèse circumstances and the sitting becomes permanent for those people who have partially or completely lost their standing or ability of ambulation. Loss of standing is responsible for direct medical consequences (bone loss, pressure sores) or indirect (fractures, neurological disorders, social isolation). Maintain upright position as long as possible is an important goal for health. It is also an expectation of people living the loss of walking as a grieving and trying to walk anyway sometimes taking unnecessary risks. Several research projects are proposing to extend the capabilities of walking with support systems for ambulation. Many of them combine the functions of a walking aid in the form of robotic walkers to a navigation aid in the environment for people with intellectual deterioration. For stroke, the use of walkers is often impossible by the failure to grasp the handle on the paralyzed side (hemiplegia). This disease is the leading cause of motor disability in France and in most industrialized countries. The VHIPOD project aims to create a new personal electric vehicle. Positioned between the walker and the wheelchair. The project aims to involve an aid to the sit to stand transition (and reverse). It should be used from any seat or any usual seating surface, the vehicle will transport the user in an upright position Inside and outside. The project brings together clinical and academic partners around BA Systems specialized in the design of robotic platforms and ADM concept specialized in the design and implementation of projects with the automotive industry and heavily involved in projects for electric vehicles. After a rapid preliminary selection of the possible solutions clinical partners (CEREMH and the rehabilitation center Kerpape) in collaboration with all partners will define the specifications. They will be involved throughout the development process of the device to validate the concepts through the continued integration of mechanical data that ADM will include in 3D virtual moke up and real moke up to be used for validation by users. Biomechanical constraints specific to people with hemiplegia will be considered. Important work of modelling will be performed to allow mechanical appropriate choices. Control laws of the device will be gradually adjusted to the biomechanical model of the sit to stand and reverse transitions from measurements made on a test bench. BA systems will take into account the mechanical and biomechanical constraints in the embodiment of the device and will do a permanent quality control with a cost adjustment to propose a marketable product in France on a financial initial basis of a sophisticated electric wheelchair. The project will be highly dependent on the technology experience of BA systems, ADM and LAMIH Valenciennes. The project coordinator (LaTIM Brest) has extensive experience in the field of disability and biomechanics of disabled subjects. The originality of this project is based on a conceptual change: loss of ability to walk does not require the use of a wheelchair.