In North Eastern South America, the Espace-Dev lab is involved with the University of French Guiana (UG) and IRD Guiana thanks to the dozen or so academics who make up the local team and the IRD infrastructure that hosts them.

Constrained by the growth of its population and the need to develop new economic activities, French Guiana has the ambition to develop its local resources and to change the objectives of research and higher education to include them in a sustainable development approach at the service of the territory. In this context, the scientific themes of the Espace-Dev base in French Guiana aim to contribute to the followings:

  • To promote energy transition through the exploitation of renewable energies;
  • To implement innovative technological systems to estimate the ecological impact of human, industrial and mining activities in the Amazon;
  • To develop support and maintenance of the satellite reception antenna, since the creation of the SEAS network (IRD), with SEAS-Guyana. This work feeds local research in image processing (solar radiation), as well as processing chains. They are now part of national projects and networks such as GEOSUD-GEODEV (Theia), and regional projects such as PROGYSAT.

Contact

Laurent Linguet
Campus de Montabo
Centre IRD, Route de Montabo
97300 Cayennez

Main research themes

Energy transition: contributing to the energy autonomy of non-interconnected territories by exploiting Earth observation data to meet the objectives of the energy transition. We are particularly interested in photovoltaic electricity and its insertion in the power grid.

 Research actions:
– Optimization of a mesoscale numerical climate prediction model for French Guiana and the Amazon region
– Development of Artificial Intelligence methods applied to satellite data in order to estimate and predict sun radiation
– Conception of prediction algorithms
– Development of control laws and management of intermittent photovoltaic energy in photovoltaic production systems.

Sensors: contributing to the spatial observation of the environment through the technological implementation of interconnected in situ sensors, complementary to the data and indicators extracted by satellite imagery.

Research actions:

– Implementation and adaptation of sensitive measurement heads for physical and biochemical measurements in liquid and airborne media in an Amazonian context.
– Adaptation and implementation of sensor interrogation electronics and signal conditioning for laboratory to field applications for autonomous, communicating, networked, low-cost systems.

Modeling complex systems: develop and promote pluri- and interdisciplinary research on modeling, analysis and decision support for spatio-temporal systems.

Key Research Achievements

  • Tools and models for the prediction of sun radiation on the Earth’s surface by satellite imagery
  • Processing chain of GOES images for the generation of time series of sun radiation in the Amazon region
  • Development of acoustic wave sensors (high frequency) for the detection of molecules with low concentration and molecular weight in liquid.
  • Implementation of remote and wireless collection and archiving of raw data measured by sensors

Members

The team in French Guiana is hosted on two sites:

IRD Guyana Campus in Montabo, Cayenne: 8 academics (Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics – sections 61, 63, 27, and … of the CNU)
1 Computer Engineer (IRD)
6 PhD students

The IUT Campus in Kourou: 4 academics (Electrical and Computer Engineering – sections 63, 27 of the CNU), 1 PhD student

Main collaborations

Nationals: IMS (UMR 5218 – Bordeaux), LAAS CNRS (Toulouse), LCMCP (UMR 7574 – Paris), INSERM “ANTICIPE” (U1086 – Caen), GREMAN (UMR 7347 – Tours), LGEI (Ales)

International: Signal Acquisition and Processing Laboratory (LAPS), UEMA (Université d’Etat du Maranhão), Scientific Instrumentation and Metrology Laboratory (LIMC), UFCG (Université Fédérale de Campina Grande), Integrated Circuit Design Laboratory (LCCI) – UFBA (Université Fédérale de Bahia)

Industrial collaborations: Entreprise VOLTALIA, Entreprise EDF Guyane