Efficient intersection management remains a critical challenge for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs), especially under dynamic traffic conditions that require balancing safety, throughput, and responsiveness. Existing cooperative protocols, such as virtual platooning and rule-based scheduling, offer decentralized control but typically rely on fixed synchronization points and static sequencing rules, limiting their adaptability in real-time environments. In this study, we propose PSO-DCPVP, a novel hybrid framework that integrates Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) within the Distributed Clearing Policy for Virtual Platooning (DCPVP). The key innovation lies in dynamically computing mobile synchronization points for each vehicle based on local traffic states, enabling more flexible and context-aware platoon coordination. We evaluate the framework in a custom multi-agent simulation environment under three traffic scenarios: low, moderate, and high demand over a 600 s simulation horizon. Results demonstrate that PSO-DCPVP significantly increases intersection throughput, exceeding 2.1 pcu/s in congested settings while reducing average delay to below 0.03 s. Compared to baseline strategies such as FIFS and DCPVP, PSO-DCPVP demonstrates strong potential for real-world deployment in intelligent transportation systems.

As vehicle systems become increasingly connected and intelligent, insurance providers are turning to machine learning techniques to personalize billing based on individual driving behavior. This shift raises important questions about how to balance predictive performance with user privacy. In this paper, we present PrivFedProfiling, a decentralized privacy-preserving learning framework designed for use-based insurance (UBI) systems. Our method leverages Federated Learning (FL) to collaboratively train behavior models across distributed driver devices without transferring raw data. To further strengthen privacy, we integrate Differential Privacy (DP) and Homomorphic Encryption (HE) within the training process, protecting sensitive patterns in shared model updates. The proposed approach uses a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) architecture and is validated using synthetic driving behavior data generated from the SUMO simulator. It offers a realistic yet controllable environment for testing. Results indicate that our method maintains high model accuracy while ensuring strong privacy guarantees, making it suitable for real-world deployment.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence has led to advancements in daily life, including applications in industries, telemedicine, farming, and smart cities. It is necessary to have human-AI synergies to guarantee user engagement and provide interactive expert knowledge, despite AI’s success in "less technical" fields. In this article, the possible synergies between humans and AI to explain the development of art history and artistic style transfer are discussed. This study is part of the "Smart Photobooth" project that is able to automatically transform a user’s picture into a well-known artistic style as an interactive approach to introduce the fundamentals of the history of art to the common people and provide them with a concise explanation of the various art painting styles. This study investigates human-AI synergies by combining the explanation produced by an explainable AI mechanism with a human expert’s insights to provide reasons for school students and a larger audience.

Traffic congestion remains a major issue in the majority of developing countries. Intersections, in particular, are one of the major bottlenecks in road networks, exacerbating congestion. In these countries, policemen are regularly used to control traffic at intersections due to the social behaviors of drivers. However, policemen experience a lot of stress from long working hours and have the risk of accidents. Therefore, effective control of traffic at intersections taking into account the social behavior of drivers is an important strategy for improving traffic flow. To address this, in this paper to control the traffic at the intersection of a road network, a robot model for traffic signal management system using a web-based traffic simulator is presented.

The technology of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) is a hot topic of transportation systems, especially regarding platooning and the interaction with other road users. Considering traffic safety, many studies have been devoted to the exchange of information among various road users, such as CAVs and pedestrians. In a platooning scenario, when a pedestrian is detected by a CAV, the leader CAV shares the information with its followers to provide a safe and courteous environment thanks to its connectivity. However, the possibility to improve traffic efficiency while meeting the safety requirements has rarely been addressed in current research. Yet, in industrial areas, where automated vehicles and pedestrians frequently interact, combining safety and efficiency is crucial. The present paper addresses this challenge by first analyzing the intersection of CAVs and pedestrians in no-traffic-signal scenarios. The optimal state is proposed to reduce the time loss. Then, the paper uses a reinforcement learning-based method to make CAVs arrive at the optimal state, to improve traffic efficiency. The experimental results based on virtual reality show that the proposed method increases traffic efficiency while ensuring traffic safety.

International audience

Recently, the civilian applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are gaining more interest in several domains. Due to operational costs, safety concerns, and legal regulations, Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) is commonly used to design models and conduct tests. This has resulted in numerous research works addressing ABS in civilian UAV applications. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the ABS contribution in civilian UAV applications by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the relevant research in the previous ten years. Following the SLR methodology, this objective is broken down into several research questions aiming to (i) understand the evolution of ABS use in civilian UAV applications and identify the related hot research topics, (ii) identify the underlying artificial intelligence systems used in the literature, (iii) understand how and when ABS is integrated in broader and more complex internet of things & ubiquitous computing environments, and (iv) identity the communication technologies, tools, and evaluation techniques used to design, implement, and test the proposed ABS models. From the SLR results, key research directions are highlighted including problems related to autonomy, explainability, security, flight duration, integration within smart cities, regulations, and validation & verification of the UAV behavior.

As more interactive and multimedia-rich applications are migrating to the cloud, end-user satisfaction and her Quality of Experience (QoE) will become a determinant factor to secure success for any Software as a Service (SaaS) provider. Yet, in order to survive in this competitive market, SaaS providers also need to maximize their Quality of Business (QoBiz) and minimize costs paid to cloud providers. However, most of the existing works in the literature adopt a provider-centric approach where the end-user preferences are overlooked. In this article, we propose the AQUAMan mechanism that gives the provider a fine-grained QoE-driven control over the service acceptability rate while taking into account both end-users' satisfaction and provider's QoBiz. The proposed solution is implemented using a multi-agent simulation environment. The results show that the SaaS provider is capable of attaining the predefined acceptability rate while respecting the imposed average cost per user. Furthermore, the results help the SaaS provider identify the limits of the adaptation mechanism and estimate the best average cost to be invested per user.