THE AERONAUTICS-SPACE-DEFENCE SECTOR OF WESTERN BRITTANY

 

 

 

 

 

A dense network of diversified suppliers and know-how

Starting with a brief overview of Investir en Finistère activities, this document presents the economic assets of Finistère, Bretagne, for the development of the Aeronautics-Space-Defense activities : infrastructures, human resources, high end education, research.

An innovative ecosystem

The invention of the turbocodes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Based upon intuition and work of some European researchers who, in the Eighties, have underlined the interest of probabilistic processing in telecommunication receivers, Claude Berrou (the physicist) and Alain Glavieux (the mathematician) developed a new range of error correcting  codes called “turbocodes”. Outstanding results spread worldwide very quickly and  the inventors had to generalize their concepts, implemented  in turbocodes,  to other functions of a communication network.

After their first public presentation in 1993 in Geneva, turbocodes were quickly adopted by CCSDS (Advisory Committee for Space Data Systems), the standardization committee for the world space agencies (ESA, NASA, NASDA,…). The first European mission using turbocodes was probe SMART-1 which is today turning around the moon. Other standardization committees have been fast integrating turbocodes in telecommunication standards, such as 3rd generation mobile communication.

The challenge of the TELECOM Bretagne research group is to preserve its leading edge position in the field. It is not a simple task: the number of researchers working today on the turbo techniques is estimated to be around  3 or 4 thousands worldwide, and applications of this new approach are numerous. Among these techniques, turbo-detection and turbo-equalization, also invented by TELECOM Bretagne (Catherine Douillard, Claude Berrou, Michel Jézéquel, Alain Glavieux), and more and more widely studied and exploited by the industry; they bring undeniable improvements for  transmission systems in difficult environments.
TELECOM Bretagne has been developing its scientific activity through industrial partnerships, resulting in the creation of a joint cluster of industrial companies &  research entities: PRACOM. The new structure will naturally focus on turbo based developments.
In addition, TELECOM Bretagne took active part in the setup of the European research network, NEWCOM (Network of Excellence in Wireless Communications).

Sources : http://www.futura-sciences.com, http://www.telecom-bretagne.fr


At the side of BOEING, twelve Brest students studying composite structures, have been awarded

During the JEC Composites Tradeshow Show in Paris, students from the Brest IUT presented their plane prototype called "Nijal", which was used as the technological platform to industrialyze a novel manufacturing process. All parts of Nijal were produced by resin unfusion ; this technique is about to revolutionize the production of large composite parts used for the aircraft industry.

The Brest IUT is the only french institution, this year, to receive an Award at the side of winners as prestigious as Boeing, The american manufacturer was rewarded for his Boeing 787 wing structure, also produced by infusion.

Sources : Les Echos, 17/04/2008 and Le Télégramme, 11/04/2008