CATIE overcomes technological barriers in companies

CATIE, the Aquitaine Center for Information and Electronic Technologies, is a technology resource center dedicated to supporting small and medium-sized businesses in their digital transition. To this end, it develops platforms and research programs, and offers innovative tools to help them integrate new technologies. Part of the CATIE team will be exhibiting at Laval Virtual on April 9-11.

Can you tell us more about your company?

Founded near Bordeaux in 2014, CATIE is a technological resource center supported by the French region Nouvelle-Aquitaine to meet a specific objective: guide SMEs and ISEs in their digital transformation. It connects research labs and companies to create innovative solutions for professionals in three areas: data and algorithms, cyber physical systems, and human-centered systems.

We support the companies at different stages: proof of concept, consulting, assistance, advice, expert solutions, but also innovative vision and pluridisciplinary analysis. CATIE helps remove technological barriers encountered by the organizations that consult us. They are able to adopt and integrate groundbreaking technologies, acquire new knowledge, get access to additional resources and develop their skills.

How is your organization involved in immersive technologies?

CATIE’s team focusing on Human-Centered Systems, who will be at Laval Virtual, is made up of some fifteen engineers and PhDs, who combine human and social sciences (ergonomics, cognitive sciences, physiology, neurosciences, etc.) with technology (virtual, augmented, mixed reality, etc.)

We support companies in the development of digital technologies by considering end-user abilities in the development and design of digital systems in order to enhance their use and acceptability.

Our feedback and methods are accessible via Peacch, our human cognitive and behavioral assessment platform. This fully-free web platform provides companies, evaluation tools, surveys, and experimental protocols that we constantly use in our projects to test the performance of our digital solutions.

What will you exhibit at Laval Virtual?

CATIE is presenting a number of technological demonstrators from various projects. Firstly, a 2-wheel driving simulator in collaboration with the French Sécurité Routière (road safety) and the Caylar company. We tested several sensory technologies to help drivers anticipate danger: visual, sound and vibration.

The project raised a number of questions: do we need an ultra-realistic virtual environment to test these technologies, or is a balance between realism and cost preferable? How can visual, audible and vibratory alerts help to anticipate hazards? How can we assess the performance, acceptability and understanding of these systems? On this last point, our Peacch platform, available for free and open access, enables companies to speed up user testing thanks to evaluation tools and experimental protocols.

We will also be presenting technologies for spatial video projection and tangible interactions, as well as human physiological monitoring technologies. CATIE has developed connected sensors to detect users’ cognitive states. Here, we present our skills in processing the signals needed to determine states of fatigue or stress in order to avoid accidents, or to redirect the user’s activities in real time according to their state.

Are you planning any activities or demos at your booth?

Yes, we are planning several demonstrations. First of all, the demonstrator developed as part of the road safety project will be fully testable. We are presenting a semi-curved screen, with motorcycle handlebars equipped with motion capture systems, a drone, as well as a motorcycle helmet equipped with various warning technologies and a vibrating belt. 

We also propose to test technologies for spatial video projection and information exploration via tangible interactions on electronic boards, as well as new interaction techniques. We also plan to bring along a number of headsets and technologies developed by CATIE.

Does your company have an upcoming project to share with us and our visitors?

In addition to the driving simulator, we are also working on another highly structuring project involving immersive technologies for training. The PhOENIX project is an interdisciplinary project led by ALPhANOV, which brings together PYLA, CATIE and PHOTONICS France with a common objective: to develop digital tools for photonics training.

Faced with a fast-growing industry, players in the photonics sector need to adapt their training courses and optimize learning formats to meet the urgent need to train candidates in record time. New digital pedagogical tools such as virtual reality, adaptive pedagogy and micro-learning appear to be the solutions of choice for training heterogeneous audiences. However, research in education and ergonomics shows that many of these new digital pedagogical devices are unfortunately counter-productive, as they have not been designed with testing in a community of users in mind, nor have they been based on a pedagogical or didactic methodology.

The ambition of this project is therefore twofold. On the one hand, to produce tools that facilitate and amplify training for the photonics industry, and on the other, to produce methodological knowledge and tools that facilitate the design of effective digital educational innovations.

How is your solution transforming your business field?

Our applied research activities give companies a head start in terms of technological innovation. We aim to share our results so that companies can design immersive digital tools adapted to the use and capabilities of end-users, key factors in improving the acceptability and democratization of these technologies.

For example, in the field of training and immersive technologies, CATIE has developed turnkey technological devices for photonics training, including educational videos, an immersive laboratory and an online platform for training in mathematics for optics. We also develop evaluation methodologies to measure the impact of these tools, and support trainers in integrating them into their training courses.

In the field of road safety, we are exploring the contribution of immersive technologies to improving hazard perception while riding a two-wheeler. Our work focuses on the level of realism required in simulation, the impact of sensory warnings via vision, hearing and vibration, and the development of driving assistance technologies. This approach could be extended to other modes of transport such as cars, bicycles and scooters.

All our results, whether tools, methods or experimental protocols, are distributed freely via white papers and our Peacch platform, making them accessible to companies, assistive technology developers and public authorities.

Sustainability and the environment are key topics of this century. How do you cope with these concerns in your XR technologies?

In a world where responsible digital technology is becoming a priority, innovative companies need to be made aware of the need to develop digital technology in a way that takes into account the added value for the user, as well as all the associated development costs.

CATIE is part of the ENTER cluster (Excellence Numérique au service des Transitions Environnementales et Responsables – Digital Excellence for Environmental and Responsible Transitions), the first competitive cluster to bring together the digital ecosystem to build a more responsible digital environment to serve these transitions, by acting across the entire digital value chain.

CATIE projects address issues such as embedded AI, frugal AI, low tech, eco-design and energy autonomy, among others. Generating innovation in this context requires a certain degree of efficiency, which will undoubtedly be a strength for the future. One of the approaches we are exploring is to position the technologies we develop in relation to users’ actual end uses, rather than their presumed uses.