Space science serving autonomous vehicles and
sustainable mobility solutions

Monday 14 January at the agency’s Head Office in Paris, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and VEDECOM President Rémi Bastien signed a partnership agreement aiming to foster synergies between the two organizations’ respective missions and areas of expertise.

CNES and VEDECOM have thus put their desire to establish a long-term partnership in the domain of autonomous vehicles on a formal footing, the aim being to help develop, test and validate space techniques, technologies and solutions for vehicle mobility, and to encourage their deployment and use. This unique cooperation will enable the two partners to work together on new areas of shared
interest in the future.

VEDECOM is an institute for energy transition (ITE) dedicated to mobility, established in 2014 under the French government’s PIA future investment plan. Its members include French and European car and automotive equipment manufacturers. VEDECOM is particularly active in the field of autonomous vehicles, a highly competitive global market in which French players are strongly placed.

CNES, through its Directorate of Innovation, Applications and Science (DIA), is pursuing an ambitious partnership strategy and promoting the use of space technologies to meet society’s needs in areas like mobility, and especially for autonomous and connected vehicles that rely on geolocation and precise mapping. The agency is working to develop a generic technology platform aimed at
providing support and expertise to industry for critical positioning technologies using the Galileo satellite navigation system for autonomous vehicles.

After today’s signature, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “Autonomous vehicles are undoubtedly one of the main challenges facing us in the years ahead, and in this context CNES is proud to have signed this partnership agreement with VEDECOM. Our agency is thus pursuing its strategy of forging alliances with key stakeholders to foster uptake of space solutions in response to society’s needs, driven by the overarching objective of boosting the nation’s economy.”

Rémi Bastien added: “The VEDECOM institute is pioneering safe, sustainable and efficient mobility solutions through close cooperation with academia and industry. As CNES is contributing its great expertise in space, so the challenges our research scientists are taking up in the domain of mobility can benefit the space sector and all of French industry. We are very excited about working with a flagship agency like CNES.”

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