Today, drones are used in both a civilian and military context, a swarm being a group of autonomous drones which are partly controlled by an operator. Swarms are a concept that is still in the research stage and previous research has consisted of how a swarm will communicate with the operator and how the swarm will work technically. However, the problem with the research available today is that it largely lacks the military connection. Hence, this study has aimed to investigate how the Armed Forces want to use swarms in the context of reconnaissance missions. The questions posed were, how do personnel within the Armed Forces want to plan swarm missions? What behaviors and capabilities do Armed Forces personnel want a swarm to possess? How do Armed Forces personnel want to receive information from swarms? Empirical data were collected by conducting three interviews with three individuals employed by the Armed Forces. The empirical data was then analyzed using qualitative content analysis where the responses were divided into smaller groups and sub-groups.  The study resulted in tables of desired abilities and behaviors that can be used in later research to create a real swarm system.

[pt] O objetivo desta tese é abrir os olhos à violência contida na imagem enquanto agente semiótico-material da guerra contemporânea. No século XXI, o drone armado militar, uma arma imagem-centrada, tem encabeçado a curadoria geopolítica dos EUA no âmbito da guerra ao terror. Na esteira do emaranhado entre Washington e Hollywood, observa-se que a violência drônica guarda as mesmas características do cinema: imagem e movimento. Contudo, a imagem de um drone não é puramente o reflexo da natureza da guerra; ela é mais que representacional, é performativa. A partir do conceito de imagem-aniquilação, esta tese argumenta que a imagem possui uma agência destrutiva ao transitar da reflexão à difração (Haraway, 1992; Barad, 2007). Ao invés de espelhar a realidade, a imagem-aniquilação cria um brutal padrão de diferença no mundo. Trata-se de uma ontologia destrutiva na qual ver e aniquilar estão em estado de superposição. Logo, tudo aquilo que está enquadrado, está potencialmente morto. É dizer, ao enquadrar corpos e objetos no terreno, cria-se um estado de violência superposicional em que se está vivo, mas virtualmente morto. Tal movimento ocorre a partir de um forte apelo transdisciplinar, no qual a disciplina de Relações Internacionais (RI) é apoiada por conceitos e ideias da Filosofia, da História da Arte, dos Estudos Culturais e dos Estudos Fílmicos do cinema. A criação do conceito de imagem-aniquilação é fruto da combinação entre a filosofia de Gilles Deleuze (Deleuze e Guattari, 1996), entendida como prática que fabrica conceitos, e a abordagem de Michael Shapiro (2020), que busca extrair teoria política das imagens fílmicas. Para a realização desde exercício, aborda-se o filme Eye in the Sky (2015), do diretor Gavin Hood. A escolha desta obra cinematográfica advém da sua crítica amplamente positiva, bem como seu status como filme que revela a realidade da guerra de drones. Desse modo, esta tese contribui tanto para a compreensão dos imaginários sociotécnicos da guerra contemporânea a partir do continuum guerra-imagem-cinema, quanto para a inovação epistêmica e metodológica nas RI. / [en] The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the violence inherent in the image as a semiotic-material agent in contemporary warfare. In the 21st century, the armed military drone, an image-centered weapon, has spearheaded the geopolitical curatorship of the USA in the context of the war on terror. In the wake of the entanglement between Washington and Hollywood, it is observed that drone violence shares the same characteristics as cinema: image and movement. However, a drone s image is not purely a reflection of the nature of war; it is more than representational, it is performative. Building upon the concept of annihilation-image, this thesis argues that the image wields a destructive agency as it transitions from reflection to diffraction (Haraway, 1992; Barad, 2007). Rather than mirroring reality, annihilation-image creates a brutal pattern of difference in the world. It is a destructive ontology in which seeing and annihilating are in a state of superposition. Therefore, everything that is framed is potentially dead. That is to say, by framing bodies and objects in the terrain, a state of superpositional violence is created in which one is alive, but virtually dead. This movement is driven by a strong transdisciplinary appeal, in which the discipline of International Relations (IR) is informed by concepts and ideas from Philosophy, Art History, Cultural Studies, and Film Studies. The development of the concept of annihilation-image is the result of the combination of Gilles Deleuze s philosophy (Deleuze and Guattari, 1996), understood as a practice that create concepts, and Michael Shapiro s approach (2020), which seeks to extract political theory from cinematic images. For the purpose of this exercise, we examine the film Eye in the Sky (2015), directed by Gavin Hood. The choice of this cinematic work is derived from its widely positive critical acclaim, as well as its status as a film that exposes the reality of drone warfare. Thus, this thesis contributes to both the understanding of the sociotechnical imaginaries of contemporary warfare within the war-image-cinema continuum and to the epistemic and methodological innovation in (IR).

This dissertation integrates the strengths of individual emergent delivery technologies with package characteristics, and rural community needs to meet the demand for equitable, accessible, and inclusive rural delivery that is also cost-effective. To find ways to meet the package delivery service needs in rural areas and to fill research gaps in rural package delivery modeling, this study introduced a novel model known as the Parallel Scheduling Vehicle Routing Problem (PSVRP) in an endeavor to revolutionize package delivery by enhancing its efficiency, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. The PSVRP represents a state-of-the-art approach to vehicle routing problems, incorporating a diversified fleet of innovative delivery modes. The multi-modal fleet of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems works in unison to minimize operational costs in various settings. A solution methodology that implemented the Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) algorithm was designed to solve the PSVRP in this research to produce optimal or near-optimal solutions. A variety of scenarios in a rural setting that include different quantities of customers to deliver to and different package weights are tested to evaluate if a multi-modal fleet of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems can provide cost-effective, low emissions, and efficient rural delivery services from local stores. Different fleet combinations are compared to demonstrate the best combined fleet for rural package delivery. It was found that implementation of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems does decrease rural package delivery cost, but it does not yet decrease cost enough for the return on investment to be high enough for industry to implement the technology. Additionally, it was found that electric technologies do significantly decrease emissions of package delivery in rural areas. However, without a carbon tax or regulation mandating reduced carbon emissions, it is unlikely that the delivery industry will quickly embrace these new delivery modes. This dissertation not only advances academic understanding and practical applications in vehicle routing problems but also contributes to social equity by researching methods to improve delivery services in underserved rural communities. The PSVRP model could benefit transportation professionals considering technology-enabled rural delivery, developing rural delivery plans, looking for cost-effective rural delivery solutions, implementing a heterogeneous fleet to optimize rural delivery, or planning to reduce rural delivery emissions. It is anticipated that these innovations will spur further research and investment into rural delivery optimization, fostering a more inclusive and accessible package delivery service landscape. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation integrates the strengths of individual emergent delivery technologies with package characteristics, and rural community needs to meet the demand for equitable, accessible, and inclusive rural delivery that is also cost-effective. To find ways to meet the package delivery service needs in rural areas and to fill research gaps in rural package delivery modeling, this study introduced a novel model known as the Parallel Scheduling Vehicle Routing Problem (PSVRP) in an endeavor to revolutionize package delivery by enhancing its efficiency, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. The PSVRP represents a state-of-the-art approach to vehicle routing problems, incorporating a diversified fleet of innovative delivery modes. The multi-modal fleet of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems works in unison to minimize operational costs in various settings. A solution methodology that implemented the Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) algorithm was designed to solve the PSVRP in this research to produce optimal or near-optimal solutions. A variety of scenarios in a rural setting that include different quantities of customers to deliver to and different package weights are tested to evaluate if a multi-modal fleet of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems can provide cost-effective, low emissions, and efficient rural delivery services from local stores. Different fleet combinations are compared to demonstrate the best combined fleet for rural package delivery. It was found that implementation of electric vans, ADVs, drones, and truck-drone systems does decrease rural package delivery cost, but it does not yet decrease cost enough for the return on investment to be high enough for industry to implement the technology. Additionally, it was found that electric technologies do significantly decrease emissions of package delivery in rural areas. However, without a carbon tax or regulation mandating reduced carbon emissions, it is unlikely that the delivery industry will quickly embrace these new delivery modes. This dissertation not only advances academic understanding and practical applications in vehicle routing problems but also contributes to social equity by researching methods to improve delivery services in underserved rural communities. The PSVRP model could benefit transportation professionals considering technology-enabled rural delivery, developing rural delivery plans, looking for cost-effective rural delivery solutions, implementing a heterogeneous fleet to optimize rural delivery, or planning to reduce rural delivery emissions. It is anticipated that these innovations will spur further research and investment into rural delivery optimization, fostering a more inclusive and accessible package delivery service landscape.

Les véhicules aériens sans pilote (UAV), souvent appelés drones, trouvent de nombreuses applications dans la vie. Les applications de drones nécessitent plusieurs indicateurs de performance essentiels tels que la couverture, la force du signal, la latence et la mobilité dans des scénarios. Par conséquent, l'utilisation des communications sans fil dans les drones est essentielle pour répondre à toutes les exigences. En raison des connexions au haut débit entre les drones et les utilisateurs pour transférer des données de haut volume à haute résolution, les dernières générations sans fil, comme la norme LTE, sont privilégiées. Il est évident que l'intégration de blocs de radiofréquence (RF) est essentielle pour construire un système sur puce et réduire la taille des drones. Dans ce contexte, cette thèse vise à développer un amplificateur de puissance (PA) innovant avec haute performance reconfigurable entièrement intégré qui adresse les différents besoins imposés par le standard LTE à utiliser dans les applications des UAV. Le PA entièrement intégré en CMOS 65 nm a pour objectif de fournir une puissance de sortie élevée et résoudre le compromis entre la linéarité et l’efficacité. Un transformateur à quatre enroulements est implémenté pour configurer le fonctionnement en multi modes du PA. La technique « segmented bias » permet au PA d’améliorer la linéarité. Le PA obtient non seulement des performances élevées en RF, mais démontre également un potentiel pour l'adopter dans la bande 5G inférieure. / Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), often known as drones, have been finding numerous applications in life. Drones applications need several essential performance indicators such as coverage, signal strength, latency, and mobility under scenarios. Therefore, the use of wireless communications in drones is critical to address all requirements. Because of high-speed connections between drones and users to transfer high-resolution high-volume data, latest wireless generations, namely the LTE standard, are privileged. It is straightforward that the integration of RF blocks is essential to build a system-on-chip and shrink the size of drones. To answer the above question, this thesis aims to develop a fully integrated reconfigurable high-performance innovated PA that supports 4G LTE standard to be used in UAVs’ applications. The fully integrated 65-nm CMOS power amplifier (PA) provides a watt-level output power, addresses the linearity/efficiency trade-off. A four-winding transformer is implemented to configure the multi-mode operation of the PA. The “segmented bias” technique allows the PA to increase the linearity. The PA not only obtains high radiofrequency performances but also demonstrates a potential to adopt it design in the lower 5G band.

Les véhicules aériens sans pilote (UAVs), utilisés et développés pour la première fois dans le domaine militaire, ont connu de profonds changements ces dernières années et sont de plus en plus utilisés dans le domaine civil. Etant plus connus sous le nom des drones, ils sont le plus souvent utilisés dans les domaines civiles et militaires. Ils sont employés pour : la lutte contre les incendies, le sauvetage ainsi que dans des applications spécifiques comme la surveillance et l’attaque. Le vol en formation est de loin le plus utilisé car il permet une répartition judicieuse des tâches et améliore grandement l’efficacité des drones (principe de l’attaque en meute, des animaux carnassiers). Cela pose alors la problématique de la coordination et de la stratégie, ainsi que du type de fonctionnement (maitre/esclave,…).Le type et la qualité d’informations optimums restent aussi à définir.L'utilisation accrue de ces systèmes coopératifs dans des environnements dangereux rend leur fiabilité essentielle pour prévenir tout événement catastrophique. Une performance globale de la flotte des drones doit être garantie, malgré une possible dégradation des composants ou de toute modification du réseau et de l'environnement. Il est nécessaire de détecter les comportements anormaux pouvant contribuer aux collisions et ainsi affecter la mission. Compte tenu des performances et du coût, les systèmes à tolérance de pannes et à redondance ne représentent pas toujours la solution la plus efficace pour ce type de vol de flotte en formation. Différentes méthodes telles que l'analyse par arbre de défaillance (ADD), l'analyse des modes de défaillance, de leurs effets et de leurs criticités (AMDEC) ont été utilisées dans le monde des hélicoptères.Dans une première partie, une méthode statique basée sur l’ADD est proposée, pour assurer la fiabilité de la communication entre les drones d’un côté et entre les drones et la station de base de l’autre côté en accentuant l’échange de flux d’informations. Nous utilisons des arbres de défaillance pour représenter les différentes conditions d’erreur de ce système complexe.Dans une deuxième partie, nous analysons les différents états de défaillance des communications et leurs probabilités. Ce processus étant stochastique, une approche par chaîne de Markov absorbante est développée. L’approche proposée peut être utilisée pour trouver les scenarios les plus risqués et les éléments à prendre en compte pour améliorer la fiabilité.Enfin, dans une troisième partie, nous étudions le problème de réception des messages d’un drone en proposant un protocole basé sur le nombre de retransmissions. La réception est assurée avec une certaine probabilité de fiabilité, en fonction de plusieurs attributs tels que la modulation, le taux d’erreur des bits (BER) caractérisant les drones. / Unmanned aerial vehicles, used and developed initially in the military field, have experienced profound changes in recent years and are increasingly used in the civilian field. Recognized as drones, they are most often used in the civil and military domains. They are used for firefighting, rescue as well as in specific applications such as surveillance and attack. The formation flight is the most used because it allows a judicious distribution of the tasks and greatly improves the efficiency of the drones (principle of the attack in pack, carnivorous animals). This will raise the issue of coordination and strategy, as well as the type of operation (master /slave, ...). The type and quality of optimal information also remain to be defined.The increased use of these cooperative systems in hazardous environments makes their reliability essential to prevent any catastrophic event. Overall performance of the drone fleet should be ensured, despite possible degradation of components or any changes that occur to the network and the environment. It is necessary to detect the anomalous behaviors that might contribute to collisions and thus affect the mission. Taking into consideration performance and cost, the fault-tolerant system and redundant systems are not always the most efficient solution for the formation fleet flight. Different methods like the fault tree analysis (FTA), Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) have been used in the helicopter field.In the first part, we propose a static method based on FTA, to ensure a successful communication between the drones from one side, and between the drones and the ground station from the other side by emphasizing on the exchange of information flows. It uses various fault trees to represent the different error conditions of this complex system.In the second part, we analyze the different fault states and their probabilities. As this process is stochastic, an absorbing Markov chain approach is developed. The proposed approach can be used to find the most risky scenarios and considerations for improving reliability.Finally, in the third part, we put the emphasis on the message receipt problem in a drone’s communication network by proposing a protocol based on number of retransmissions. The reception of a message is provided with a certain probability of reliability depending on several attributes such as modulation and bit error rate (BER) characterizing the UAVs.

Les applications mettant en oeuvre les minidrones ont connu un développement très rapide ces dernières années. Ces applications concernent pour beaucoup l'amélioration de notre cadre de vie et principalement de notre sécurité face à des aléas naturels pour lesquels de nouveaux moyens de surveillance ont besoin d'être mis au point. La plupart des missions confiées aux minidrones supposent la réalisation de trajectoires soit planifiées à l'avance, soit définies au fur et à mesure que de nouvelles informations sont disponibles. La qualité du suivi de trajectoire a d'importantes conséquences pour le succès de ces missions. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de contribuer à la synthèse de lois de pilotage/guidage pour les minidrones présentant des performances améliorées sur un domaine de vol étendu et sur une panoplie de missions diversifiées. Ainsi les minidrones sont ici appréhendés comme des systèmes fortement non linéaires, très souvent naturellement instables, aux paramètres physiques partiellement connus et susceptibles d'être soumis à de fortes perturbations. Les travaux de cette thèse portent donc sur la synthèse de lois de commande non linéaire (commande non linéaire inverse, commande différentiellement plate, commande par \emph{Backstepping}) intégrant, dans le cadre de la commande adaptative, des processus d'apprentissage en ligne. Le principal cas d'étude considéré dans cette thèse est celui du guidage d'un minidrone de type quadrirotor qui présente des caractéristiques opérationnelles particulièrement intéressantes : atterrissage et décollage verticaux, capacité de vol stationnaire, grande manoeuvrabilité même à basse vitesse. Ainsi la dynamique de son vol a été modélisée et les propriétés mathématiques du modèle retenu ont été exploitées pour mettre au point la structure de commande dont les performances ont été évaluées par simulation sur une multitude de trajectoires de guidage.

Grâce aux progrès de miniaturisation des systèmes embarqués, les mini-drones qu'on appelle en anglais Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs) sont apparus et permettent de réaliser des applications civiles à moindres coûts. Pour améliorer leurs performances sur des missions complexes (par exemple, pour contourner un obstacle), il est possible de déployer une flotte de drones coopératifs afin de partager les tâches entre les drones. Ce type d'opération exige un niveau élevé de coopération entre les drones et la station de contrôle. La communication entre les drones de la flotte est donc un enjeu important dans la réalisation des opérations d'une flotte de drones. Parmi les différentes architectures de communication qui existent, le réseau ad hoc s'avère être une solution efficace et prometteuse pour l'opération d'une flotte de drones. Un réseau ad hoc de drones ou UAV Ad hoc Network (UAANET) est un système autonome constitué d'une flotte de mini-drones et d'une ou plusieurs station(s) sol. Ce réseau peut être considéré comme une sous-catégorie d'un réseau ad hoc mobile (MANET) avec des caractéristiques spécifiques (vitesse importante des nœuds, modèle de mobilité spécifique, etc.) qui peuvent engendrer des baisses de performance du protocole de routage utilisé. Par ailleurs, la nature partagée du support de transmission et l'absence d'une infrastructure fixe pour vérifier l'authenticité des nœuds et des messages posent un problème de sécurité des communications. Compte tenu du caractère critique des données de charge utile échangées (en effet, un attaquant peut capturer un drone et l'utiliser à des fins malveillantes), il est important que les messages échangés soient authentifiés et qu'ils n'ont pas été modifiés ou retardés par un attaquant. L'authentification des messages est donc un des objectifs à atteindre pour garantir la sécurité du système Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) final. Diverses solutions de sécurité ont été conçues pour les réseaux sans fil, puis ont ensuite été adaptées aux réseaux MANET. Ces solutions peuvent s'étendre à des applications pour les réseaux UAANET, c'est pourquoi nous proposons dans cette thèse une architecture de communication fiable et sécurisée pour les flottes des drones. Dans ce travail, nous avons étudié en premier lieu l'application d'un réseau ad hoc mobile pour les flottes de drones. Nous examinons en particulier le comportement des protocoles de routage ad hoc existants dans un environnement UAANET. Ces solutions sont ainsi évaluées pour permettre d'identifier le protocole adéquat pour l'échange des données. Cela nous amène dans un deuxième temps, à proposer un protocole de routage intitulé Secure UAV Ad hoc routing Protocol (SUAP) qui garantit l'authentification des messages et détecte l'attaque wormhole. Cette attaque peut être définie comme un scénario dans lequel un attaquant enregistre les paquets en un point, et les rejoue à un autre point distant. L'attaque wormhole est particulièrement dangereuse lorsqu'un protocole de routage réactif (qui utilise le nombre de sauts comme métrique d'une route) est utilisé. Pour contrer cette attaque, le protocole SUAP permet d'une part d'assurer des services de livraison de donnés (une vidéo de télésurveillance) entre un drone distant et une station sol. D'autre part, le protocole SUAP possède également des partitions de sécurisation qui se basent sur une signature et une fonction de hachage pour assurer l'authentification et l'intégrité des messages. En ce qui concerne l'attaque wormhole, une technique qui consiste à corréler le nombre de sauts et la distance relative entre deux nœuds voisins est utilisée. Ce mécanisme permet de déduire la présence ou non d'un tunnel wormhole dans le réseau. En outre, cette architecture de communication est conçue avec une méthodologie de prototypage rapide avec l'utilisation d'une méthode orientée modèle pour tenir compte du besoin de validation du système UAS final. / Advances in miniaturization of embedded systems have helped to produce small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with highly effective capacity. In order to improve their capability in civilian complex missions (for instance, to bypass an obstruction), it is now possible to deploy UAV swarms, in which cooperative UAVs share different tasks. This type of operations needs a high level of coordination between UAVs and Ground Control Station (GCS) through a frequent exchange of information. The communication capabilities are therefore an important objective to achieve for effective UAV swarm operations. Several communication architectures can be used to allow communication between UAVs and GCS. Ad hoc network is one of them and is an effective and promising solution for multi-UAV systems. Such a network is called UAANET (UAV Ad hoc Network) and is an autonomous system made of a UAV swarm and one or several GCS (Ground Control Station). This network can also be considered as a sub category of the well-known MANET (Mobile Ad hoc network). However, it has some specific features (such as node velocity, specific mobility model) that can impact performance of routing protocols. Furthermore, the nature of the wireless medium, along with the lack of fixed infrastructure, which is necessary to verify node and message authentication, create security breaches. Specifically, given the critical characteristic of the real-time data traffic, message authentication proves to be an important step to guarantee the security of the final UAS (composed of UAV swarm). Security of routing protocols has been widely investigated in wired networks and MANETs, but as far as we are aware, there is no previous research dealing with the security features of UAANET routing protocols. Those existing solutions can be adapted to meet UAANET requirements. With that in mind, in this thesis, we propose a secure and reliable communication architecture for a UAV swarm. In this work, the creation of UAANET has first been concieved. In order to do this, we studied the impact of existing MANET routing protocols into UAANET to assess their performance and to select the best performer as the core of our proposed secure routing protocol. Accordingly, we evaluated those existing routing protocols based on a realistic mobility model and realistic UAANET environment. Based on this first study, we created a secure routing protocol for UAANET called SUAP (Secure UAV Ad hoc routing Protocol). On the one hand, SUAP ensures routing services by finding routing paths between nodes to exchange real time traffic (remote monitoring video traffic). On the other hand, SUAP ensures message authentication and provides detection to avoid wormhole attack. The SUAP routing protocol is a reactive routing protocol using public key cryptography and hash chains. In order to detect wormhole attack, a geographical leash-based algorithm is used to estimate the correlation between the packet traveled distance and the hop count value. We also contribute to the certification of the secure communication system software through a Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach. This certification is needed to validate the operation of the UAV swarm, especially in cases where it is used to exchange control and command traffic. We used Simulink and Stateflow tools and formal verification tools of Matlab Software to design SUAP routing protocol. The evaluation of the effectiveness of SUAP has been executed both through emulation and real experiment studies. Our results show that SUAP ensures authentication and integrity security services and protects against a wormhole attack. It also provides an acceptable quality of service for real-time data exchanges.

La motivation qui a initié le projet de recherche ANR « Démonstrateur Gun Launched Micro Air Vehicle » est le besoin d’avoir un engin portatif qui permettrait d’obtenir rapidement des images d’une zone d’intérêt située à quelques centaines de mètres, avec la possibilité de pouvoir observer l’intérieur des bâtiments à travers leurs fenêtres ou en allant les explorer directement. Pour répondre à ce besoin, l’Institut franco-allemand de recherche de St Louis a eu l’idée de lancer un minidrone hélicoptère avec un canon. Le GLMAV, sous la forme d’un projectile, est lancé à partir d‘un tube portable à une distance de 500 m et une altitude de 100 m, où il pourra commencer à transmettre des images de la zone à observer. L’utilisation d’un système hybride projectile/minidrone a deux principaux avantages : cela permet d’augmenter l’autonomie du drone, et les premières images de la zone d’intérêt sont obtenues très rapidement. Au cours de cette thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés à la phase de transition, passer d’un projectile à un mini hélicoptère. Un modèle aérodynamique détaillé du GLMAV a été obtenu sur toute son enveloppe de vol. En prenant en compte les difficultés rencontrées lors de la phase de transition (perturbations des capteurs dues à l’accélération de 2500g au lancement, conditions initiales variables), nous avons développé une stratégie de commande, et une loi de commande en vitesse basée sur la technique du backstepping. Cette stratégie de commande a été validée en simulation. La loi de commande en orientation a été validée sur le prototype du GLMAV. Des travaux sur le flux optique, pour obtenir les vitesses latérales, ont été commencés. / The motivation that initiated the ANR research project "Démonstrateur Gun Launched Micro Air Vehicle" is the need to have a portable system which would permi tto quickly obtain images of an zone of interest placed at some hundred of meters, with the possibility to observe inside buildings either by their windows or by going inside them.To answer this need, the French-German Research Institute of St Louis got the idea o fusing a gun launched rotorcraft-MAV. The GLMAV, in its projectile form, is launched from a portable launching tube to a distance of 500m and a height of 100m, where it will collect and transmit visual information from the scene. The use of a projectile/rotorcraft-MAV hybrid system has two main advantages : it allows extending the MAV range,and the first images of the interest zone are obtained very quickly. During this PhD, we studied the transition phase, the passage from a projectile to a rotorcraft-MAV. A detailed aerodynamic model of the GLMAV has been obtained over his whole flight envelope. Taking into account the difficulties encountered during the transition phase (perturbation of the sensors caused by the 2500g acceleration at the launch, varying initial conditions),we developed a control strategy, and a velocity control law based on the backstepping methodology. This control strategy has been validated in simulation. The attitude control law has been validated on the GLMAV prototype. Studies on optical flow, to obtain the lateral velocities of the GLMAV, have been started.

Vattenkraft är en stor källa till energi i Sverige, främst i de norra delarna av landet. För att få ut maximal potential från vattenkraftverken behövs information om hur mycket vatten eller snö det finns uppströms från kraftverken. Genom att få fram tillförlitliga värden av snömängd är det möjligt att minska osäkerheten i uppskattningarna.Eftersom det är svårt att kartera större avrinningsområden via markbundna observationer, både praktiskt och ekonomiskt, har drönarobservationer utvecklats. För att använda sig av drönare krävs det vetskap om var de ska flygas i för område för att hela avrinningsområdet ska representeras. I projektet tas en modell fram i ArcGIS för att hitta mindre områden inom avrinningsområden som ska vara representativa inom utvalda parametrar. I projektet berörs parametrarna vegetation, höjd, lutningsgrad samt dess riktning.Arbetet för att ta fram en modell som ska underlätta framtida arbete inom och utanför forskningsprojektet DRONES är uppdelat i två delar. Den första delen är att ta fram och granska vilka parametrar som påverkar snödjupet i avrinningsområdet. Den andra delen innefattar arbetet med att skapa en modell i ArcGIS som ska analysera ett avrinningsområde med framtagna parametrar för att hitta mindre områden som representerar det hela.Resultatet från de framtagna modellerna kan tillämpas för att underlätta kartläggningen och snödjupsmätningar i avrinningsområden, vilket kan utnyttjas vid effektivisering av vattenreglering. / Hydropower is a major source of energy in Sweden mainly in the northern parts of the country. To get the maximum potential from the hydropower plants, information is required on how much water or snow there is upstream from the power plants. By obtaining reliable values of the amount of snow, it is possible to reduce the uncertainty in forecasts on spring flood.Due to difficulties in mapping larger catchment areas via ground-level observations, drone observations have been developed. In order to use drone observations, knowledge of where they are to be flown to represent the entire catchment area is required. In this project, a model was developed in ArcGIS to find smaller areas within catchments that are to be representative within selected parameters. The project touches upon the parameters vegetation, height, slope and aspect.The work to develop a model that will facilitate future work within and outside the DRONES research project is divided into two parts. The first part is to analyze which parameters affect the snow depth in the catchment area. The second part consists of creating a model in ArcGIS that will find a smaller area inside a catchment that represents the snow depth for the whole catchment.The results from the developed model can be applied to facilitate the mapping and snow depth measurements in catchment areas, which can be used to streamline water regulation.

This dissertation is about 'transtructures', a term coined to describe new kinds of infrastructures that are more attentive and responsive to the needs of contemporary society, its emerging economies and technological capabilities. The purpose of this inquiry is to begin to explore the character and possibilities of a design practice that could guide responsibly and ethically the transition of existing industrial infrastructures towards these new configurations: what processes it could follow, and what materials it could include. Through a series of design experiments in the areas of logistics and telecommunications, I started to prototype and develop a programmatic framework for a 'redirective' design practice, which is aimed at engaging publics with infrastructural issues. Design probes and speculative mockups have been employed to express and materialize present and future infrastructural configurations, opening them up to public scrutiny and participation. The premise of this work is fairly simple: if we want to provide more citizen-centered solutions to emerging social demands, we need to explore what changes are possible, and even required, within the industrial systems that currently frame our possibilities for implementing such innovations. Thus, certain design interventions will be necessary to allow people outside these systems to understand and relate to these networks and to identify possibilities for their transformation. The result of this inquiry is the early 'prototype' of what a practice for redirecting and transitioning towards the design of such postindustrial infrastructures could be like. In particular, it exemplifies how design may inquire into the artificial space of industrial infrastructures and explore opportunities for their reconfiguration toward more contextually adaptive forms and functions.