Located at the crossroads of the industrial and academic worlds, research is one of the fundamental axes of IPSA pedagogy. IPSA places innovation at the heart of its engineering training with its research laboratories dedicated to aerospace.
IPSA is aware of the importance of research at the heart of its training in order to better prepare graduates for innovation and creativity through a process of scientific and technological progress. This involves applied research in the field of aeronautics and space, with a strong focus on training in innovation through the involvement of students in research projects.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH
The development of research at IPSA has 4 major objectives:
- To train students in innovation through research, and to make them aware of research itself. More specifically, an Initiation to Research and Innovation Program has been set up to accompany students at Master level. The objective is essentially the discovery of the research methodology on an advanced subject and the realization of an introductory project to research or R&D (in companies) which takes place during the last academic semester.
- To spread the scientific and technological skills of teacher-researchers to the teaching programmes. It comes true through the active participation of teacher-researchers in the updating of programmes and the supervision of certain missions from technical student associations within the IPSA Student Lab.
- To contribute, to the modest extent of IPSA, to the development of knowledge through applied research in the fields of aeronautics and space (publications in scientific journals, participation in major scientific events, project management).
- To enter networks where the pooling of resources is to the benefit of all, thanks to partnerships with industrialists, universities or schools and organisations such as competitiveness clusters.
RESEARCH DAY
As a pillar of IPSA, research is carried out in many ways within the school, whether through its laboratories or the projects carried out by its students as part of their studies or via the many technology-oriented associations. To highlight all these components and their richness, the Paris campus of IPSA organizes its annual Innovation and Research Day between January and February.
A SUSTAINABLE POLICY
In addition, IPSA’s scientific policy addresses the societal and industrial challenges of sustainable development (energy optimisation, intelligent materials, smart mobility), in particular by investing in the design and development of intelligent systems and by integrating data and decision sciences (data mining, machine learning, deep learning) into the curriculum. IPSA’s Research and Innovation Department is responsible for all the school’s research activities. It is divided into two teams:
- Micro Aeronautics team
Micro Aeronautics integrates mechatronics applied to mini/micro-UAVs and mini rockets.
It includes the issues of automation (control, command), electronics, mechanics of structures and materials in terms of aerodynamic properties, embedded systems (intelligent for simultaneous piloting of UAV swarms and multi-agent cooperation), signal processing (wireless telecommunication and intelligent vision), robotics (interactive UAV) and energy autonomy in a more global “systems of systems” vision.
Laboratories:- Autonomous aerial systems laboratory – LS2A
- IPSA intelligent systems laboratory – LS2I
- IPSA complex systems laboratory – LSCI
- Scientific Computing for Mechanics and Energetics team
In the aeronautics and space field, numerical modelling, calculation, simulation and validation are essential in any design of flying machines, and in all technological aspects of any kind.
In applied mathematics, scientific computing is based on optimization research in signal processing, optimal control and shape optimization, and thin structure modeling. In fluid mechanics, the problems addressed are aerodynamics, heat exchanges and flows of compressible fluids. Scientific computation is also essential for the analysis of data on the positions of the stars and the production of more powerful dynamic models for the computation of autonomous navigation of spacecraft and ephemerides in Celestial Mechanics.
Laboratories:- Aerodynamic testing and modelling laboratory – LEMA
- IPSA thermal and thermodynamics laboratory – L2TI
- Laboratory of mechanics of materials and structures – L2MS
- Numerical simulation and calculation laboratory – LSNC