René GARELLO of IMT Atlantique, Life Fellow IEEE, Prof Emeritus

L’intervention du Professeur René Garello, Professeur émérite à l’IMT Atlantique et life Fellow IEEE, s’ouvre sur un constat clair : la pression croissante des activités humaines sur l’océan et le climat exige une transformation profonde de nos capacités d’observation, de mesure et d’interprétation des phénomènes environnementaux.

Les océans, recouvrant plus de 70 % de la surface terrestre, jouent un rôle fondamental dans la régulation du climat. Les altérations du milieu marin — réchauffement, acidification, pollution par les hydrocarbures, dispersion de microplastiques, prolifération d’algues, modification des courants et perte de biodiversité sont désormais documentées, modélisées et suivies par des systèmes globaux (et surtout Européens avec Copernicus) d’observation. Ces systèmes intègrent satellites, mesures in situ, capteurs sous-marins et plateformes autonomes.

Le cœur de l’intervention insiste sur le rôle clé du traitement du signal, domaine dans lequel le Professeur Garello est un expert reconnu internationalement. Les méthodes avancées de traitement du signal permettent entre autres la détection de structures marines (vents, vagues, courants), la détection et l’identification de navires, la détection de nappes de pollution, la caractérisation des plastiques flottants, etc.

Il est nécessaire de garantir la qualité, la cohérence et la disponibilité des données, éléments essentiels pour alimenter modèles climatiques et services opérationnels. L’intégration multi-capteurs et les nouvelles approches basées sur l’IA, dont les jumeaux numériques de l’océan - des modèles 3D capables de simuler la propagation de pollutions ou d’événements extrêmes à partir de données réelles - constituent une transformation majeure de la discipline.

La lutte contre les crises climatiques et la préservation de l’océan dépendront de notre capacité collective à observer, comprendre et prédire. Le traitement du signal permet de transformer des volumes massifs de données en indicateurs fiables. La recherche et l’ingénie ont donc un rôle essentiel : fournir les outils technologiques permettant d’éclairer les choix d’aujourd’hui pour protéger le climat de demain.

Biography:

René Garello was born in 1953. He received the Ph.D. degree in Signal Processing at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in 1981. From 1982 to 1984 he worked as a Research Associate at Aeronomy Lab, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado (USA). He joined the Institut Mines-Telecom Atlantique (IMT Atlantique, formerly Telecom Bretagne), Brest, France in 1985. In 1988, he became Professor in this engineering school in the field of signal processing and image processing and in 1995, Prof. Garello obtained his Habilitation (HDR; Habilitation to Supervise Research). Prof. Garello retired in Sept. 2021 with the status of Professor Emeritus.

Prof. Garello was the General Chairman of the first OCEANS of the new Two-Oceans-a-year concept: OCEANS’05 held in Brest, France in June 2005. He received the OES Distinguished Service Award (DSA) in 2006 for developing and implementing the two OCEANS conference policy. In 2012, Prof. René Garello was elected President of the IEEE OES for a two-year term and re-elected by acclamation in 2014. He was from 2017 to 2019 the chair of the IEEE Environmental Engineering Initiative, and has been for the same period seating as principal for IEEE at the GEO (Group on Earth Observation) Executive Committee.

Prof. Garello was an elected TAB member of the IEEE Conferences Committee (2015-2016), 2017 Member of the TAB Re-Connect Ad Hoc Committee. He was appointed as a member of the IEEE TAB Strategic Planning Committee from 2017 to 2019. Prof. René Garello is presently President of the IEEE France Section, elected for the period 2023-2025.He co-chaired the OBPS (Ocean Best Practices System) Steering Committee, a UNESCO/IOC supported project for the period 2023-2024.
He is the chair of the IEEE Region 8 ad hoc Committee on Climate change for the period 2025-2026.
He was the General Chair of the IEEE OCEANS 2025 conference just held in Brest in June 2025.

Address:Brest, Bretagne, France, 29000

Yoshikazu OHARA of Tohoku University

Cracks are one of the severe defects that can drastically decrease the material strength of structures and mechanical components. Ultrasonic phased array is one of the powerful techniques for nondestructive evaluation (NDE). 

However, it faces challenges with crack closure. Crack closure can lead to the underestimation of crack depth, as ultrasound waves can transmit through the crack. To address this issue, we have developed closed-crack imaging methods, nonlinear ultrasonic phased arrays, by combining phased array with nonlinear ultrasonics. This technique has successfully measured closed-crack depth in various specimens. On the other hand, ultrasonic phased array for NDE is mainly limited to 2D imaging due to the use of a 1D array transducer, while real-world defects often have complex 3D geometries. The primary limitation has been the insufficient number of elements for an array transducer. 

To overcome this challenge, we are developing two types of ultrasonic 3D imaging systems. The first is a Piezoelectric and Laser Ultrasonic System (PLUS) for flexible 3D imaging. The second is a real-time 3D phased-array system using a piezoelectric 1024-element 2D matrix array transducer developed for NDE applications. 

This seminar will present the nonlinear ultrasonic phased array and two types of 3D imaging methods for accurate crack imaging

Biography:

Address:Tohoku University, , Tohoku, Japan