The PACA Marine Competitivity Center: Big ambitions for naval technology

The PACA Marine Competitivity Center:
Big ambitions for naval technology

by Didier GOUT

Like a wave cresting, this is one powerful dynamic that cannot lose its momentum. Officially launched September 9 at the occasion of its first general assembly, the Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur Marine Centre - one of France's 67 competitivity centres, all created with public assets to boost innovation and cooperation between local companies and research - has met its first challenge of simply getting started.

There are 200 participants involved, including 135 manufacturers plus 63 research labs, schools and universities, and 62 projects underway, worth nearly 200 million euro in R &D expenses. Twenty-six of the projects are alone worth 100 million. Yes, things are off to a good start. The centre's goal is to develop an economy of international stature in the PACA Region in marine technologies. It is a particularly unifying goal for the region's three coastal counties : Var County, which represents half of the centre members, Bouches-du-Rhône County, and Maritime Alps County. The sea is a vital source for the region. Sixty thousand jobs are directly linked to sea activity, at companies like DCN, CNIM, Thales, and ECA. Then there are another 2,200 positions in public research alone, many of them at France's Institute of Sea Research and Operations (or IFREMER in French). The region can also boast of Toulon (France's top military port) as well as the port at Fos-sur-Mer, the autonomous port of Marseille, and an additional 132 pleasure ports. Marine tourism also has its own significant impact on the region. The Centre's President is Bernard Planchais. He is also in charge of the DCN-Thales partnership, after having directed DCN Services Toulon. He told us, "Marine development is definitely one of the major stakes for the upcoming decades. The sea covers 70% of the planet, carries 70% of the transport and has enough coastline to accommodate 50% of the world's
population."

Guénaël Guillerme is head of ECA, the company that conceives and manufactures naval systems and is involved in ten of the centre's projects. They employ nearly 600 people worldwide, including 200 in the PACA Region alone, their total workforce having doubled in just five months via a number of acquisitions. He noted, "By uniting all the sea manufacturers of the region, the centre allows them to get to know each other better, teach them to work together with the help of the laboratories, with the training organisations helping take their needs into account." He added, "Marine technologies are scattered, simultaneously involving many companies and organisations. The centre helps give us an impression of the global dimension of it all. As for the small and medium-sized companies, they gain access to this global level of communication by participating in the international events such as the Offshore Technology Conference, for instance."

A common committee for approving projects, working hand in hand with another centre in Brittany

The centre's leadership is now in place and cooperative projects are multiplying. At the head of this organisation is a common coordination committee linking the PACA Region Marine Centre and that of the Brittany, consolidating to leverage power in the balance of maritime innovation. Bernard Planchais says, "They hold a major portion of the companies and research organisations within their domain." This common committee validates projects to ensure their survival and promote their complementarity. Just below them are two pilot committees : one for the PACA centre and one for Brittany's. The committee at the PACA centre has 19 members and as many representatives for large companies as for the smaller ones, including the research and training centres, too. Research and innovation work groups were created at the centre and focus on two major themes : sustainable development, and safety and security. Within these themes are five concerns: maritime safety and security, maritime engineering and maintenance, coastal engineering and the environment, the usage and value of marine biological resources, and lastly, the exploitation of marine energy resources. Each work group has 30 participants. They are responsible for creating cooperative projects that must then be submitted for approval by the centre's expert engineering team, led by Patrick Baraona, President of the PACA Marine Centre and of Toulon Var Technologies. Once these structures were established they gained swift strength. The centre's ambitions are feasible, as they include assuring a large-scale maritime economy for the Region in the prospect of creating almost 8,000 new jobs. The factors at stake are quite credible: boost tech innovations, strengthen regional manufacturers, give support to small and medium-sized companies, reinforce regional players working to build a European naval defense industry, and attract new investors. An attractive focal point for investors will be the idea for a zone reserved for companies specialised in sea activities, supporting the Toulon Provence Méditerranée urban community, led by Huber Falco, senator-mayor of Toulon, who is also head of the centre's strategic orientation committee. The centre's objectives are envisioned to begin taking hold in three to five years : to be a major player in French Homeland Security's aim to keep the maritime territory safe, to develop a global offering of innovative products and services in terms of availability and security of naval, military, pleasure boating and offshore means, to be recognised on a worldwide level as a centre of expertise in marine knowledge and environmental risks, and finally, to be a centre of excellence in submarine technologies.

The abundance of projects is evidence of the centre's dynamism

As mentioned, there are two specific issues that concern the PACA Centre : maritime security and the environment. Three major projects are underway to deal with maritime security. The first project is called SECMAR, whose 20 million euro in assets are intended to help provide this sensitive maritime zone with security for goods, people and structures. The project aims to respond swiftly to sea-borne terrorist threats, and will naturally be headquartered in proximity to the coastline. It is led by the Thales Underwater System, the sonar branch of the electronic group of defense, now employing 750 at Sophia Antipolis. Other partners include the company "Communication et Systèmes", Degreane Horizon, ECA, Cybernetix, the applied math labs of the Paris Mining Institute at Sophia, ISEN, Toulon's Digital Electronics Institute, the teams of the LSEET, Toulon and Var Universities' Environmental Terrestrial Electromagnetic Probe Lab, and the Autonomous Port of Marseille, future site of a preliminary version of SECMAR. "We will need to update the hosts of systems in order to protect the petrol terminals, the refineries, the naval bases and all of the ports. We'll use optronics, radars, hydrophones and a variety of sensors," said Bertrand de l'Epinois, Thales Underwater's Director of Sonar Studies. He added, "It's a market that has emerged as a result of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and the bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in Yemen. Manu-
facturers are already beginning to propose solutions without yet having the assets at their disposal."

CAPASEATY is the name of the centre's second major security-oriented project. With 50 million euro for research and development, it's even grander in its scale, gathering 37 partners and seven research labs under its wing. The DCN Morillon Company is piloting the project. They have nearly 800 employees, 80% of whom are engineers and/or professionals specialised in Combat Management. While this project also aims to ensure safety and security, this time it is for a much larger zone : 200 nautical miles, or about 400 kilometres, the zone of economic exclusivity. There are a host of risks ranging from pollution accidents to illicit trafficking to terrorist threats, etc.

DCN Morillon Director Pascal Gambiez did confide to us, "The heart of the project is the trans-horizon high-frequency radar. Despite detection issues linked to the roundness of the earth, it can still go as far as 400 kilometres. We will also use the most up-to-date computer systems for the treatment of all our data and information." The radar was developed by Diginext in Aix-en-Provence, experts in tactical liaisons. The technique they apply is called "multistatism" and it covers a vast amount of space in order to detect every possible risk factor by simultaneously using a network of several coastal-based radars. For the sake of comparison, today's frigate radars can only reach a maximum of 150 kilometres, a range that is clearly much more uncertain than that of the trans-horizon model. A large variety of threats must be detected, from any simple motorboat rigged as a bomb to a seemingly inoffensive but potentially dangerous decoy commercial vessel. The technology will use artificial intelligence to handle lesser known, unpredictable threats by calling upon the skills ofregional IT companies like Sopra and Atos.

Information-capturing drones and buoys

The CAPASEATY project is also home to other examples of interesting technology. One example is the surface drones, developed by two companies, Bertin and ECA, from two rival studies : one involving a well-working engine, another using a dozen-metre long robotic drone not unlike the pneumatic Spartan Drone built by the United States. Its function is to collect multiple kinds of information in the heart of any hostile zone. Another example is the satellite-driven communications buoy, developed by the BMTI. Equipped with an Automatic Identification System receptor, several buoys of this kind will allow identification barriers to be created in order to monitor traffic, of course once all the 17-metre long vessels are fitted with the AIS detector, as the norm requires.

The centre's third security-oriented project is called SYREN and is one of the projects being developed at Insilio, a small company of only five employees originally from Gemplus. Insilio's objectives are to apply optical recognition technology as well as radiofrequency identification to all pleasure boats in order establish an automated tracking system for boat traffic at ports. It will thus help identify imposter vessels, as the legitimate boats will already have the electronic Tag ticket signal attached to their boughs, its information as readable as far as 150 metres away. A company representative is expected to come demonstrate the ticket's usage at two test ports, Hyeres and Bandol, in 2007.

The environment is the second theme occupying the minds of those at the PACA Marine Centre, and there are a number of projects. Those projects led by Veolia Eau (a company of 135 employees) and its partners, notably the IFREMER, the CNRS, Météo France, and the ACRI company… are quite substantial for our times, when pressure to save water is stronger than ever and the practice of dumping waste into the sea has become all the more unacceptable.

The GIRAC project seeks to monitor the impact of coastal dumping in real time, although they face inherent difficulties in creating an example that uses coastal and terrestrial marine models that monitor the flow of canals and rivers. Their initial idea? To best evaluate the effects of pollution during rainy weather (when it can have a heavier impact) in order to limit it to a strict minimum. Veolia Eau Director Laurent Hette illustrated the matter with some hypothetical questions: "A pipe is discharging 500m3 per hour onto a beach for three hours-is the beach being polluted? Is a storage basin worth the investment? What would be a feasible cost?" Hette continues, "Although we know enough to foresee several scenarios as soon as three days ahead, we cannot yet obtain real-time information, as our calculators don't work that fast for the sheer amount and complexity of the calculations. Also, we do not have an adequate network of sensors."

Reusing purified water to sprinkle golf courses

This lag in the model indeed poses a problem, as the mathematical description must provide proper representations of reality to record specificities in the Mediterranean and the English Channel, such as wind predominance and tide details. The objective of the real-time model is to have the ability to take the right measures at the right time. Hette continues, "In heavy rain, the rule is to close access to all beaches. We would prefer closing only those that really need to be closed."

A second environmentally oriented project is called REGAL, involving two branches of research : the re-use of water and active groundwater management. The project has applied the results of their first branch of research, the re-utilisation of purified water, to a golf course at Sainte-Maxime since 2005. The water is treated with ultraviolet light at the purifying station and then re-used to water the golf courses. This also revitalizes the groundwater layer of the land. They soon hope to be using the technology at La Plaine de La Garde near Toulon, and it is practiced on a large scale in places like Berlin and Namibia, where recycled water represents 30% of drinkable water for the African nation. France's Public Hygiene High Commission, although having become aware of this technology rather late (probably due to the relative abundance of fresh water here), now seems ready to observe the results of these experiments.

As for the REGAL projects second branch of research, the maintenance and revitalisation of the coastal groundwater system, it is done by injecting the coastal groundwater system with the treated purified water. This helps the coast avoid penetration by salty seawater, a frequent phenomenon when the groundwater system has been over drained. This is happening today at Hyeres, one of the test ports, whose brackish water is quite difficult to use, as well as at Porquerolles, whose groundwater contains more milligrams of salt than the norm. Moreover, the usage of their brackish groundwater had to be halted in order to leave enough supply to hold the boats at port there.
A third environmental project at the PACA Marine Centre is called RENOUV-EAU and involves the Principia company, a subsidiary of Areva, the CEA, and the Atomic Energy Commission. RENOUV-EAU's goal is to ally the desalinised drinking water they produce with a renewable energy source such as the photovoltaic energy here in the region, the energy from the swells in Brittany, and other sources like thermal sea energy and wind power.
Then there is the SHIATSU project, a highly interactive tsunami alert system, is especially timely. Piloted also by DCN Morillon (like the CAPASEATY project described earlier), the 6 million euro project aims to provide the capacity to rapidly transmit "qualified" data to a surveillance centre in just seconds. Partners include Mining Geology and Research Office, the French Sea Research and Usage Institute, the CNRS and the ACRI company, who is calling upon Professor Virieux's team at the University of Nice's Geosciences Azur Laboratory, specialised in monitoring how tsunami-type sea waves spread.

Last but not least, are projects such as SHAMASH, the production of lipidic biofuels from micro-algae with assistance from the National Institute of Computerized and Automated Research, and the DROOM project, a regional demonstration of multi-variable operational oceanography using new observation systems. These systems have autonomous submarine gliders that give precise analysis of the state of the sea. Partners include IFREMER, Villefranche-sur-Mer's Oceanography Observatory and the ACRI Company.

Many projects or too many projects?

This proliferation of projects is no doubt the centre's biggest asset, yet could also be seen as a certain weakness of youth… Too many projects risks an effect of killing projects. "Absolutely, this is one of the centre's points where they must remain especially vigilant," explained Claudine Bodet, BMTI's Managing Director. "Indeed, their dynamism is incontestable. The small and medium-sized companies, who represent half of all companies working with the centre, are succeeding in integrating some major projects rather easily, but they ought to readjust a bit, or even not hesitate to trim away the excess, anyway."

Her message is clear. She added, "There are too many projects at the centre today. It would be better to focus on the most important issues and thus avoid labelling that may appear a bit complacent. That would improve financing opportunities." Right now, lack of investment is the centre's main weak point, as it is for all other competitivity centres. Despite initial promises by the public powers, the limited financing and procedural complexity worry nearly everyone involved. With the exception of Mr. Guillerme of ECA, who knows that obtaining state financing was never a quick process. He considers their prudence normal for investments of such stature. His fellow interlocutors, however, fear that it could make the existing dynamism at the centre run out of steam.

Most of the projects are awaiting financing

Of all 26 projects slated for the PACA Marine Centre, only four of them have obtained financing, two by the Corporate Competitivity Funds and two others by the Marine Petrol Studies Committee. But some twenty requests for financing are still in the study phase : twelve by the Region, five by the National Research Agency, three by the National Agency for Research Development, and one by the Institute for Industrial Innovation. The aid obtained by them only represents four million euro compared to the ten million euro of investment for the four already financed projects. For Centre President Baraona, "The Corporate Competitivity Fund's amount of aid, which reached 175 million euro in 2006 for all of the centres, must be matched by other sources, on a regional, national and European level. We're even thinking of complementing it with private funding." One positive factor is that there is a dynamic network of contacts. Baraona continues, "The small and medium-sized companies have access to the major groups. While the R & D is not necessarily an outcome of their exchanges, a certain amount of business is." The idea of the competitivity centre definitely is a good approach. It is supported in Europe via the Anglo-Saxon notion of the "regional cluster," a place of information and exchanges, to which the French have contributed heavily in research and innovation. Europe is ever more conscious of the perspectives oriented towards the sea and have indeed just published a guide to maritime policy for the EU that has established the major maritime objectives within which the Centre aims to build their strategy.

Another positive feature of the Centre is the creation of the OCEANOMER group. Mediter-ranean IFREMER Centre Director Gerard Riou noted that,"OCEANOMER has united several research groups: the Marseille Oceanographic Centre, IFREMER (which itself employs 250 over several sites near Seyne-sur-Mer, Sète, Palavas and Bastia), the Toulon Var University of the South, the Villefranche-sur-Mer Observatory, the CEREGE, and the European Centre of Research and Instruction on Environmental Geosciences. They have united to better coordinate their programmes and integrate their infrastructures so that research takes a more active part at the Centre."
The centres…a concept that asks simply to stay alive, of course on condition that the projects receive the funding they deserve, but also that those involved continue to spark their imagination. The creation of this grouping of centres, which lets research play a stronger part in project evaluation and in scientific counsel to the PACA Marine Centre, demonstrates that sometimes it just takes a little willingness to cooperate more efficiently and to multiply the spin-offs of research in the economic domain.