- les peintures
sont les oeuvres de Zélie (à 2 ans) et Lilas (à 3 ans
1/2) / The paintings were
made by Zélie (when 2 years
old) and Lilas (when 3
& 1/2) -
Research activities
·
System
identification:
links between sequential
design of experiments and dual (active) control.
·
Experimental design and nonlinear regression: parameter estimation for singular experiments
(collaboration with Andrej Pazman, Comenius University,
Bratislava).
·
Semi-parametric estimation: parameter estimation in regression models (possibly nonlinear) in the presence of errors with unknown distribution by
minimisation of the entropy of the residuals.
·
Estimation
of entropy (Shannon, Rényi...) by nearest-neighbour methods (collaboration with Nikolai Leonenko, Cardiff University).
·
Analysis of convergence of optimisation algorithms
considered as dynamical systems, in particular gradient-type algorithms (collaboration with
Henry P. Wynn, LSE, and Anatoli A Zhigljavsky,
Cardiff University).
·
Non-parametric estimation, kriging (board
member of the GdR
MASCOT-NUM): design of computer experiments, kriging for system inversion
A fractal in the steepest descent algorithm

Ph.D.
supervisions
Applications, projects and grants
My activity has found applications in biomedical engineering (identification problems in pharmacokinetics), chemical engineering (identification problems in electrochemistry and heterogeneous catalysis), telecommunications (blind equalisation), image processing (comparison of dissimilar images, estimation of movement in sequences of video images), mechanical and electrical engineering (quality improvement, modelling and multiobjective optimisation).
I participated to the european project (CE)2 of the BRITE-EURAM program, concerning the development of a general purpose tool for multiobjective optimisation through the use of numerical simulation codes (1996-1999) and to the projects TITOSIM and ONE, also related to simulation and optimisation (2001-2004). I have been member of the Network of Excellence PASCAL (Pattern Analysis, Statistical Modelling and Computational Learning). I supervised a Ph.D. (Régis Bettinger) with Pascal Duchêne from IFP (Institut Français du Pétrole) on an application of kriging to the construction of catalysts.
I co-supervise with Joao Rendas (I3S) a Ph.D. (started in October 2011) on the identification of a biophysical model dedicated to the prevention of decompression accidents, supported by a DGA-DGCIS project (SAFE-DIVE).
I coordinate the ANR project DESIRE (DESIgns for Spatial Random FiElds), joint with the Statistics Departement of the JKU Universität, Linz (Au).