The French National Research Agency (ANR) and the Defence Innovation Agency (AID) will launch from mid-June, a call for projects targeted on artificial intelligence. The objective is to support research projects whose subject could be suitable for the civilian and defence sectors. This initiative is complementary to the “Specific Support for Research and Innovation in Defence” (ASTRID) programme, for which the call for projects took place last January and February.
The ASTRID project: Specific Support for Defence Research and Innovation
This call for projects will be launched in a complementary manner to the ASTRID call for projects, which has existed since 2011 and was initiated by the ANR and the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA). The 2021 edition of this programme was launched on 14 January and the deadline for submission of applications was 2 March. The ASTRID initiative is based on two objectives:
- Explore scientific or technical hard points by encouraging the development of skills and the identification of potential technological breakthroughs that are a source of beneficial innovations for defence, civilian research and industry.
- Stimulate the opening of new research avenues and maintain the innovation effort on themes of interest for defence, in coherence with the orientations displayed in the Defence Innovation Orientation Reference Document (DROID) 2020.
Usually, the call for projects is based on a wide range of scientific themes: Information engineering, Cybersecurity, Fluids, Structures, Acoustic and radio waves, Nanotechnologies – sensors and components, Photonics, Materials, Chemistry and energy, Biology – health, NRBC, Man and systems as well as in Human and social sciences applied to the management of innovation.
The research projects must be highly exploratory, innovative and at a low level of technological maturity (TRL between 1 and 4). Suggestions should also focus on fostering technological and scientific breakthroughs around potential applications for industry, civil research and defence.
A call for thematic projects on artificial intelligence
To extend the ASTRID programme, a new call for projects will focus on research in artificial intelligence. In terms of defence, France mentioned its strategy as early as April 2019 ina speech by the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly and in a detailed report in September of the same year.
Among other things, the points mentioned in this strategy concern decision support in control planning, collaborative intelligence in any environment, maintenance in operational conditions, information extraction, intelligence, robotics and autonomy. To support several research projects in this field, this new call for thematic projects around AI is declined around three axes:
- Generic methods for Defence artificial intelligence
- Processing of massive data from heterogeneous sensors
- Automatic processing of natural language and speech
The projects that will be submitted will have to last between 18 and 36 months, and the amount allocated to them is a maximum of 300,000 euros per project. The launch of this call financed by the IDA and organized by the ANR is scheduled for mid-June 2021, with a deadline for submission set for 27 July 2021.
Translated from Un appel à projets va être lancé autour de l’intelligence artificielle en complément du programme ASTRID
