ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Actanthrope intends to promote a neuro-robotics perspective to explore original models of anthropomorphic action. The project targets contributions to humanoid robot autonomy (for rescue and service robotics), to advanced human body simulation (for applications in ergonomics), and to a new theory of embodied intelligence (by promoting a motion-based semiotics of the human action). Actions take place in the physical space while they originate in the –robot or human– sensory-motor space. Geometry is the core abstraction that makes the link between these spaces. Considering that the structure of actions inherits from that of the body, the underlying intuition is that actions can be segmented within discrete sub-spaces lying in the entire continuous posture space. Such sub-spaces are viewed as symbols bridging deliberative reasoning and reactive control. Actanthrope argues that geometric approaches to motion segmentation and generation as promising and innovative routes to explore embodied intelligence: - Motion segmentation: what are the sub-manifolds that define the structure of a given action? - Motion generation: among all the solution paths within a given sub-manifold, what is the underlying law that makes the selection? In Robotics these questions are related to the competition between abstract symbol manipulation and physical signal processing. In Computational Neuroscience the questions refer to the quest of motion invariants. The ambition of the project is to promote a dual perspective: exploring the computational foundations of human action to make better robots, while simultaneously doing better robotics to better understand human action. A unique “Anthropomorphic Action Factory” supports the methodology. It aims at attracting to a single lab, researchers with complementary know-how and solid mathematical background. All of them will benefit from unique equipments, while being stimulated by four challenges dealing with locomotion and manipulation actions.

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2014-01-01, End date: 2018-12-31

The past thirty years have seen cryptography move from arcane to commonplace: Internet, mobile phones, banking system, etc. Homomorphic cryptography now offers the tantalizing goal of being able to process sensitive information in encrypted form, without needing to compromise on the privacy and security of the citizens and organizations that provide the input data. More recently, cryptographic multilinear maps have revolutionized cryptography with the emergence of indistinguishability obfuscation (iO), which in theory can been used to realize numerous advanced cryptographic functionalities that previously seemed beyond reach. However the security of multilinear maps is still poorly understood, and many iO schemes have been broken; moreover all constructions of iO are currently unpractical. The goal of the CLOUDMAP project is to make these advanced cryptographic tasks usable in practice, so that citizens do not have to compromise on the privacy and security of their input data. This goal can only be achieved by considering the mathematical foundations of these primitives, working "from first principles", rather than focusing on premature optimizations. To achieve this goal, our first objective will be to better understand the security of the underlying primitives of multilinear maps and iO schemes. Our second objective will be to develop new approaches to significantly improve their efficiency. Our third objective will be to build applications of multilinear maps and iO that can be implemented in practice.

2 491 266 €

Start date: 2018-10-01, End date: 2023-09-30

"Since the first laser discovery in 1960 and the first Free Electron Laser (FEL) in 1977, Linac based fourth generation light sources provide intense coherent fs pulses in the X-ray range for multidisciplinary investigations of matter. In parallel, Laser Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA) by using intense laser beams interacting with cm long plasmas can now provide high quality electron beams of very short bunches (few fs) with high peak currents (few kA). The so-called 5th generation light source aims at reducing the size and the cost of these FELs by replacing the linac by LWFA. Indeed, spontaneous emission from LWFA has already been observed, but the presently still rather large energy spread (1 %) and divergence (mrad) prevent from the FEL amplification. In 2012, two novel schemes in the transport proposed in the community, including my SOLEIL group, predict a laser gain increase by 3 or 4 orders of magnitudes. COXINEL aims at demonstrating the first lasing of an LWFA FEL and its detailed study in close interaction with future potential users. The key concept relies on an innovative electron beam longitudinal and transverse manipulation in the transport towards an undulator: a ""demixing"" chicane sorts the electrons in energy and reduces the spread from 1 % to a slice one of 0.1%, and the transverse density is maintained constant all along the undulator (supermatching). Simulations based on the performance of the 60 TW laser of the Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée and existing undulators from SOLEIL suggest that the conditions for lasing are fulfilled. The SOLEIL environment also possesses the engineering fabrication capability for the actual realization of these theoretical ideas, with original undulators and innovative variable permanent compact magnets for the transport. COXINEL will enable to master in Europe advanced schemes scalable to shorter wavelengths and pulses, paving the way towards FEL light sources on laboratory size, for fs time resolved experiments."

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2014-01-01, End date: 2018-12-31

Dark matter (DM) is a ubiquitous yet invisible presence in our universe. It dictated how galaxies formed in the first place, and now moves stars around them at puzzling speeds. The DM mass in the universe is known to be five times that of ordinary matter; yet its true nature remains elusive. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), relics from the early universe, are a compelling explanation chased by sensitive experiments in deep underground laboratories. However, searches for heavy WIMPs (≈100 times the proton mass), the most theoretically natural candidates, have been so far unsuccessful. Nor has evidence for such heavy particles yet been found at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Alternative scenarios are now under scrutiny, such as the existence of a hidden sector of lighter DM particles that interact, differently than WIMPs, also with electrons. DAMIC-M (Dark Matter In CCDs at Modane) will search beyond the heavy WIMP paradigm by detecting nuclear recoils and electrons induced by light DM in charge-coupled devices (CCDs). The 0.5 kg detector will be installed at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane, France. In this novel and unconventional use of CCDs, which are commonly employed for digital imaging in astronomical telescopes, the ionization charge will be detected in the most massive CCDs ever built with exquisite spatial resolution (15 μm x 15 μm pixel). The crucial innovation in these devices is the non-destructive, repetitive measurement of the pixel charge, which results in the high-resolution detection of a single electron and unprecedented sensitivity to light DM (≈ eV energies are enough to free an electron in silicon). By counting individual charges in a detector with extremely low leakage current – a combination unmatched by any other DM experiment – DAMIC-M will take a leap forward of several orders of magnitude in the exploration of the hidden sector, a jump that may be rewarded by serendipitous discovery.

3 349 563 €

Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31