The ICCAS conference at ISAE-SUPAERO

Why this conference?

The ICCAS conference is the result of the common will of Dassault Aviation and ISAE-SUPAERO to federate a community of researchers and industrialists involved in the design of cognitive air systems, with more autonomy and initiative than today.

Automation in the airline industry since the 1980s has been very beneficial because a pilot cannot control everything. But today, the number of tasks delegated to the machine is such that pilots take on a new role, that of supervisor, which implies new learning and new types of interactions.

In the new generations of civil and military aircraft, operations will become increasingly complex. It is necessary to assist the crew in a relevant way, which requires to detect, for example, fatigue, loss of vigilance, stress, distraction or even an excessive confidence in the automatisms, and to adapt to the situation.

For this, devices such aseye-tracking, facial temperature measurement orelectrocardiography can be used to quantify the human factor. However, the measurement instruments and software tools are still far from being operational and major questions remain: reliability, security, ergonomics, and explicability of algorithms.

This is why the second edition of the ICCAS conference, which was held on June 1 and 2 in Toulouse, brought together nearly 180 participants from 23 countries, from the research and aeronautics industry. Such a conference organized in Toulouse and within ISAE-SUPAERO is an exceptional opportunity to continue to place the Institute at the forefront of the development of these extremely promising research topics. This conference was motivated by ICCAS Virtual 2021 (due to the health crisis), whose great success, with 380 registrants, encouraged the renewal of the event in person.

How did the conference go?

Thus, ICCAS 2022 was organized within the framework of the CASAC sponsorship chair by ISAE-SUPAERO in partnership with Dassault Aviation, a long-time partner, and the ISAE-SUPAERO Foundation. Beyond this common organization, we had the pleasure to have the presence of many personnel of Dassault Aviation as spectators, presenters of works, and to debate during the round table. The ICCAS 2022 conference was a great success with a number of participants exceeding the initial expectations, this having been possible thanks to the mobilization of the professional networks of the researchers involved, and the communication led by ISAE-SUPAERO, the ISAE-SUPAERO foundation, and Dassault Aviation.

The conference relied on a relatively large scientific committee (18 researchers from different fields of expertise: human factors, AI, psychology, system design; and including a number of institutions from Toulouse, such as ENAC or Jean-Jaurès University). The scientific committee was responsible for the selection of scientific papers and the definition of the presentation program. The conference also relied on an organizing committee of 8 people, including an assistant recruited for the event with funds from the CASAC Chair. The ISAE-SUPAERO Foundation also took part in the organization, including during the conference, in particular through the reception and registration of the participants. The ISAE SUPAERO ENSICA Alumni Association has also been involved in the dissemination of calls for contributions and participation.

Many scientific presentations followed one another during two days, and we had the pleasure to welcome two renowned speakers: Professor Jean-François Bonnefon who spoke to us about “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence” and Professor Axel Schulte who presented his research work on the theme of “Cognitive Automation”. Social events such as poster presentations, meals, and a gala dinner allowed participants to interact more informally during the conference.