While Canada is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, most risk and emergency managers current... more While Canada is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, most risk and emergency managers currently lack the necessary tools and guidance to adequately undertake rigorous risk assessments. Unlike the complex computer models for natural hazard risk assessment intended for use by a small number of technical experts, userfriendly rapid risk assessment tools are being developed to allow non-expert users from the public safety community to run otherwise complex risk scenarios at a ‘press of a button’. This paper reports on the ongoing activities carried out jointly by the federal government and academia on the development of inventory and seismic and flood risk analysis tools. Application examples at urban scales for Ottawa and Quebec City are given.
1. reconstruct the evolution of groundwater salinity and dynamics following deglaciation, using p... more 1. reconstruct the evolution of groundwater salinity and dynamics following deglaciation, using physically-based numerical models; 2. identify the key palaeo-hydrogeologic processes involved; 3. explain the present-day state of the system, especially the persistence of brackish groundwater even at shallow depths; 4. improve our understanding of high-amplitude marine transgressionregression effects on groundwater systems in general.
Deglacial history and relative sea-level changes, northern New England and adjacent Canada, 2001
Deglaciation patterns of the Laurentide ice sheet in southern Québec were related to climatic and... more Deglaciation patterns of the Laurentide ice sheet in southern Québec were related to climatic and nonclimatic factors. Thinning of the ice sheet and thermolatitudinal ice retreat are directly linked to the global warming at the end of late Wisconsinan time, between 17 ka and 11 ka. However, correlations between regional deglacial events and global climatic oscillations during that period have yet to be established, except for the St. Narcisse Moraine event, which has been assigned to the Dryas III, and perhaps for the reactivation of Laurentide ice in the middle Chaudiere Valley area during an older cold event. Nonclimatic factors also played a major role on the deglaciation of the region. After the last glacial maximum, the Laurentide ice sheet began to decrease, and the St. Lawrence corridor channelized a major ice stream, the St. Lawrence ice stream, which became a major feature of the southeast sector of the ice sheet. The St. Lawrence ice stream is a flow convergence zone caused by a combination of ice dynamics and topographic factors and rapid ablation at its terminus. The head of the flow convergence migrated deeply into the Laurentide ice sheet and caused thinning of adjacent ice masses. As a consequence of this accelerated ablation, an Appalachian sector became differentiated from the main ice sheet. Regionally, the terminus of the ice stream was a calving bay that retreated along the Laurentian channel to the mouth of the Saguenay fjord. The ice stream and the deglaciated estuary generated the well-known flow reversal along much of the northern margin of the Appalachian sector. In addition to these generalized deglaciation processes, local and regional topographic features influenced the ice dynamics and the final deglaciation patterns.
Saltwater intrusion is generally related to seawater-level rise or induced intrusion due to exces... more Saltwater intrusion is generally related to seawater-level rise or induced intrusion due to excessive groundwater extraction in coastal aquifers. However, the hydrogeological heterogeneity of the subsurface plays an important role in (non-)intrusion as well. Local hydrogeological conditions for recharge and saltwater intrusion are studied in a coastal groundwater system in Vietnam where geological formations exhibit highly heterogeneous lithologies. A three-dimensional (3D) hydrostratigraphical solid model of the study area is constructed by way of a recursive classification procedure. The procedure includes a cluster analysis which uses as parameters geological formation, lithological composition, distribution depth and thickness of each lithologically distinctive drilling interval of 47 boreholes, to distinguish and map well-log intervals of similar lithological properties in different geological formations. A 3D hydrostratigraphical fence diagram is then generated from the constructed solid model and is used as a tool to evaluate recharge paths and saltwater intrusion to the groundwater system. Groundwater level and chemistry, and geophysical direct current (DC) resistivity measurements, are used to support the hydrostratigraphical model. Results of this research contribute to the explanation of why the aquifer system of the study area is almost uninfluenced by saltwater intrusion, which is otherwise relatively common in coastal aquifers of Vietnam.
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific ... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et a ̀ la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Abstract — The objective of the CityMobil project is to achieve a more effective organisation of urban transport, resulting in a more rational use of motorised traffic with less congestion and pollution, safer driving, a higher quality of living and an enhanced integration with spatial development. This objective is brought closer by developing integrated traffic solutions: advanced concepts for innovative autonomous and automated road ve...
2012 12th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV), 2012
This article tackles the problem of the autonomous navigation and coordination of multiple driver... more This article tackles the problem of the autonomous navigation and coordination of multiple driverless vehicles for the transport of persons or goods in outdoor environments. The system composed of fully automated road vehicles, capable of providing an effective transportation service, was recently tested at the city of La Rochelle. This same system was further improved, and a new demonstration was performed at Inria Rocquencourt, in order to demonstrate the validity of the concepts for a coordinated navigation in the presence of ambiguous and conflictual situations in a mixed environment. The originality of the approach relies on the use of new cooperative concepts and their combination with advanced perception tasks operating simultaneously on several robots. This system was developed in the context of the European project CityMobil.
Abstract—This paper presents the design and implementation of a driverless car for populated urba... more Abstract—This paper presents the design and implementation of a driverless car for populated urban,environments. We propose a system that explicitly map the static obstacles, detects and track the moving obstacle, consider the unobserved areas, provide a motion plan with safety guarantees and executes it. All of it was implemented and integrated into a single computer maneuvering on real time an
2008 10th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, 2008
Safety is an important issue of driverless car. Yet, most current approaches fail to ensure safet... more Safety is an important issue of driverless car. Yet, most current approaches fail to ensure safety even in a fully informed situation. In this paper we discuss how the safety criteria apply when the robot uses its on board sensors to evolve in a environment populated with static and moving obstacles. The sensors can only provide a partial and uncertain knowledge of the surroundings. We show that the usual safety notion does not apply for this relevant case and discuss which safety guarantees can be given and how to achieve them.
2010 11th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision, 2010
Global localization aims to estimate a robot's pose in a learned map without any prior knowledge ... more Global localization aims to estimate a robot's pose in a learned map without any prior knowledge of its initial pose. Achieving highly accurate global localization remains a challenge for autonomous mobile robots especially in large-scale unstructured outdoor environments. This paper introduces a real-time reliable global localization approach with the capability of addressing the kidnapped robot problem using only laser sensors. Our approach includes four steps: 1) local Simultaneous Localization and Mapping 2) map matching 3) position tracking and 4) localization quality evaluation. For sensor perception, we use occupancy grid method to represent robot environment. A novel pyramid grid-map based coarse-to-fine matching approach is proposed to improve the localization accuracy. Experimental results including an outdoor environment of 25,000 m 2 are presented to validate the feasibility and reliability of the proposed approach.
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2010
This paper elaborates on the use of future wireless communication networks for autonomous city ve... more This paper elaborates on the use of future wireless communication networks for autonomous city vehicles. After addressing the state of technology, the paper explains the autonomous vehicle control system architecture and the Cybercars-2 communication framework; it presents experimental tests of communication-based real-time decision making; and discusses potential applications for communication in order to improve the localization and perception abilities of autonomous vehicles in urban environments.
2006 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, 2006
The paper addresses the problem of motion autonomy of Cybercars across a urban intersection. Cybe... more The paper addresses the problem of motion autonomy of Cybercars across a urban intersection. Cybercars are small electric city vehicles aimed at navigating autonomously. In the context of a crossing, the motion generation together with its safety are critical issues. The proposed approach to the problem lies in the coupling of perception and planning capabilities. A new car to car communication algorithm provides necessary information to a trajectory planner capable of iteratively generate safe trajectories within a dynamic environment in order to drive Cybercars safely through the intersection. The main contributions of this work are the development and integration of these modules into one single application, considering explicitly the constraints related to the environment and the system and to provide an original answer to the problem of intelligent crossing.
While Canada is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, most risk and emergency managers current... more While Canada is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, most risk and emergency managers currently lack the necessary tools and guidance to adequately undertake rigorous risk assessments. Unlike the complex computer models for natural hazard risk assessment intended for use by a small number of technical experts, userfriendly rapid risk assessment tools are being developed to allow non-expert users from the public safety community to run otherwise complex risk scenarios at a ‘press of a button’. This paper reports on the ongoing activities carried out jointly by the federal government and academia on the development of inventory and seismic and flood risk analysis tools. Application examples at urban scales for Ottawa and Quebec City are given.
1. reconstruct the evolution of groundwater salinity and dynamics following deglaciation, using p... more 1. reconstruct the evolution of groundwater salinity and dynamics following deglaciation, using physically-based numerical models; 2. identify the key palaeo-hydrogeologic processes involved; 3. explain the present-day state of the system, especially the persistence of brackish groundwater even at shallow depths; 4. improve our understanding of high-amplitude marine transgressionregression effects on groundwater systems in general.
Deglacial history and relative sea-level changes, northern New England and adjacent Canada, 2001
Deglaciation patterns of the Laurentide ice sheet in southern Québec were related to climatic and... more Deglaciation patterns of the Laurentide ice sheet in southern Québec were related to climatic and nonclimatic factors. Thinning of the ice sheet and thermolatitudinal ice retreat are directly linked to the global warming at the end of late Wisconsinan time, between 17 ka and 11 ka. However, correlations between regional deglacial events and global climatic oscillations during that period have yet to be established, except for the St. Narcisse Moraine event, which has been assigned to the Dryas III, and perhaps for the reactivation of Laurentide ice in the middle Chaudiere Valley area during an older cold event. Nonclimatic factors also played a major role on the deglaciation of the region. After the last glacial maximum, the Laurentide ice sheet began to decrease, and the St. Lawrence corridor channelized a major ice stream, the St. Lawrence ice stream, which became a major feature of the southeast sector of the ice sheet. The St. Lawrence ice stream is a flow convergence zone caused by a combination of ice dynamics and topographic factors and rapid ablation at its terminus. The head of the flow convergence migrated deeply into the Laurentide ice sheet and caused thinning of adjacent ice masses. As a consequence of this accelerated ablation, an Appalachian sector became differentiated from the main ice sheet. Regionally, the terminus of the ice stream was a calving bay that retreated along the Laurentian channel to the mouth of the Saguenay fjord. The ice stream and the deglaciated estuary generated the well-known flow reversal along much of the northern margin of the Appalachian sector. In addition to these generalized deglaciation processes, local and regional topographic features influenced the ice dynamics and the final deglaciation patterns.
Saltwater intrusion is generally related to seawater-level rise or induced intrusion due to exces... more Saltwater intrusion is generally related to seawater-level rise or induced intrusion due to excessive groundwater extraction in coastal aquifers. However, the hydrogeological heterogeneity of the subsurface plays an important role in (non-)intrusion as well. Local hydrogeological conditions for recharge and saltwater intrusion are studied in a coastal groundwater system in Vietnam where geological formations exhibit highly heterogeneous lithologies. A three-dimensional (3D) hydrostratigraphical solid model of the study area is constructed by way of a recursive classification procedure. The procedure includes a cluster analysis which uses as parameters geological formation, lithological composition, distribution depth and thickness of each lithologically distinctive drilling interval of 47 boreholes, to distinguish and map well-log intervals of similar lithological properties in different geological formations. A 3D hydrostratigraphical fence diagram is then generated from the constructed solid model and is used as a tool to evaluate recharge paths and saltwater intrusion to the groundwater system. Groundwater level and chemistry, and geophysical direct current (DC) resistivity measurements, are used to support the hydrostratigraphical model. Results of this research contribute to the explanation of why the aquifer system of the study area is almost uninfluenced by saltwater intrusion, which is otherwise relatively common in coastal aquifers of Vietnam.
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific ... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et a ̀ la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Abstract — The objective of the CityMobil project is to achieve a more effective organisation of urban transport, resulting in a more rational use of motorised traffic with less congestion and pollution, safer driving, a higher quality of living and an enhanced integration with spatial development. This objective is brought closer by developing integrated traffic solutions: advanced concepts for innovative autonomous and automated road ve...
2012 12th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV), 2012
This article tackles the problem of the autonomous navigation and coordination of multiple driver... more This article tackles the problem of the autonomous navigation and coordination of multiple driverless vehicles for the transport of persons or goods in outdoor environments. The system composed of fully automated road vehicles, capable of providing an effective transportation service, was recently tested at the city of La Rochelle. This same system was further improved, and a new demonstration was performed at Inria Rocquencourt, in order to demonstrate the validity of the concepts for a coordinated navigation in the presence of ambiguous and conflictual situations in a mixed environment. The originality of the approach relies on the use of new cooperative concepts and their combination with advanced perception tasks operating simultaneously on several robots. This system was developed in the context of the European project CityMobil.
Abstract—This paper presents the design and implementation of a driverless car for populated urba... more Abstract—This paper presents the design and implementation of a driverless car for populated urban,environments. We propose a system that explicitly map the static obstacles, detects and track the moving obstacle, consider the unobserved areas, provide a motion plan with safety guarantees and executes it. All of it was implemented and integrated into a single computer maneuvering on real time an
2008 10th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, 2008
Safety is an important issue of driverless car. Yet, most current approaches fail to ensure safet... more Safety is an important issue of driverless car. Yet, most current approaches fail to ensure safety even in a fully informed situation. In this paper we discuss how the safety criteria apply when the robot uses its on board sensors to evolve in a environment populated with static and moving obstacles. The sensors can only provide a partial and uncertain knowledge of the surroundings. We show that the usual safety notion does not apply for this relevant case and discuss which safety guarantees can be given and how to achieve them.
2010 11th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision, 2010
Global localization aims to estimate a robot's pose in a learned map without any prior knowledge ... more Global localization aims to estimate a robot's pose in a learned map without any prior knowledge of its initial pose. Achieving highly accurate global localization remains a challenge for autonomous mobile robots especially in large-scale unstructured outdoor environments. This paper introduces a real-time reliable global localization approach with the capability of addressing the kidnapped robot problem using only laser sensors. Our approach includes four steps: 1) local Simultaneous Localization and Mapping 2) map matching 3) position tracking and 4) localization quality evaluation. For sensor perception, we use occupancy grid method to represent robot environment. A novel pyramid grid-map based coarse-to-fine matching approach is proposed to improve the localization accuracy. Experimental results including an outdoor environment of 25,000 m 2 are presented to validate the feasibility and reliability of the proposed approach.
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2010
This paper elaborates on the use of future wireless communication networks for autonomous city ve... more This paper elaborates on the use of future wireless communication networks for autonomous city vehicles. After addressing the state of technology, the paper explains the autonomous vehicle control system architecture and the Cybercars-2 communication framework; it presents experimental tests of communication-based real-time decision making; and discusses potential applications for communication in order to improve the localization and perception abilities of autonomous vehicles in urban environments.
2006 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, 2006
The paper addresses the problem of motion autonomy of Cybercars across a urban intersection. Cybe... more The paper addresses the problem of motion autonomy of Cybercars across a urban intersection. Cybercars are small electric city vehicles aimed at navigating autonomously. In the context of a crossing, the motion generation together with its safety are critical issues. The proposed approach to the problem lies in the coupling of perception and planning capabilities. A new car to car communication algorithm provides necessary information to a trajectory planner capable of iteratively generate safe trajectories within a dynamic environment in order to drive Cybercars safely through the intersection. The main contributions of this work are the development and integration of these modules into one single application, considering explicitly the constraints related to the environment and the system and to provide an original answer to the problem of intelligent crossing.
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Papers by Michel Parent