Sail into the future

“As innovation experts, our job is to create innovative solutions to real-world challenges,” says Capgemini senior business analyst Thomas Grohando. “It’s about exploring new ideas, perspectives and technologies.”

One recent project for Thomas and his team at Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchange (AIE) in France, has been working with maritime technology company Beyond the Sea.

The challenge? Discovering a way to decarbonize maritime transport, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using the force of the wind to propel ships that are usually powered by fossil fuels.

“The project reflects our mission at AIE,” he says. “We are a global platform for innovation, and its where we bring together a network of experts, start-up businesses and partners, so working with Beyond the Sea is perfect for us.”

In terms of sustainability, it’s also a vital challenge. Maritime transportation represents about three per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, which makes shipping the sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

Beyond the Sea aims to reduce a ship’s emissions by an average of 20 per cent, rising to 30 per cent, then 40, in the near future . And while ‘wind power’ might indicate a return to a golden age of sailing ships, its solution is a hi-tech ‘kite’ that can be used to propel current and ships of the future, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Moving towards a prototype production version of the kite, however, requires a solid IT environment, which is where Capgemini’s expertise came in.

“At AIE we connect with local businesses and the local ecosystem of start-ups and business incubator projects to see where we can help them,” says Thomas. “We also love to find projects where we can develop technology with a sustainability angle. Beyond the Sea, which is based in the Bay of Arcachon, near Bordeaux, is a great example of this.”

Teams for innovation

“My role is to coordinate all the different teams involved in the project,” Thomas continues. “That means bringing together our engineering team, innovation team and development team, to make sure we’re delivering against Beyond the Sea’s vision and goals.”

For the project, a Capgemini research and innovation team worked on how sensors could detect and monitor a kite’s precise position from space and model it in 3D. Meanwhile, Thomas’s team developed technology that makes use of AI to detect flight patterns in real time, ensuring optimal stability and performance of the kite. The teams used mathematical flight and piloting models and a human-machine interface (HMI), alongside data from Beyond the Sea, to explore the most effective ways to create the kite simulation technology.

The simulator provides a safe and flexible environment for pilots to learn to operate them, allowing for training without the constraints and costs associated with real-world testing – a point underlined by Capgemini’s partners at Beyond the Sea:

“Optimizing the quality and flight efficiency of our kites is one of our main focuses in the pursuit of performance and reliability. Ensuring optimal control during all flight phases is essential,” says Marc Thienpont, CEO of Beyond the Sea. Kite control engineer at the company Tanguy Léau, adds some extra detail about how the kite works:

“Our autopilot adjusts in real time to wind conditions, making the most of the boat’s flight window to maximize traction. In other words, depending on the wind angle, it adjusts the kite’s path to increase power and improve the vessel’s progress. The optimization of this autopilot through AI is one of the key aspects of our partnership with Capgemini.”

That optimization process begins with data.

“Given the value of the kites, a virtual simulation was crucial,” says Damien Gavlak, a developer at Capgemini and a technical lead on the project . “But to develop a simulator, we needed a lot of data. We had to ensure that we could simulate a wide range of environmental conditions so that pilots would be fully prepared to control the kites effectively in real-world situations.

“We needed data about the speed of the wind, the speed of the boat and kite, the pressure on the cable that attaches the kite to the ship, the air pressure, the specific physical aspects of the kite, and how it responds when the pilot sends it a command. There are so many variables. However, not all of the data is useful. We need to find the good data that really helps us solve the problem. This process is very incremental.”

All of this data, Thomas says, was needed to create the simulator.

“The teams have done an incredible job, and we’re now at the stage where we have a prototype version of the simulator and want to move on to a more mature tool.”

Solving sustainability challenges

While Beyond the Sea asked the teams to solve a very specific challenge, Thomas says it is only one example of many different types of client who are asking Capgemini to build sustainable solutions.

“It’s such a major topic,” he says, “projects like this help us demonstrate that we have the experience and tools to support companies that develop great sustainable technologies”.

“It’s always really interesting to work on projects like this because the potential impact is very real. As an IT company, we can also help clients by creating solutions that can be deployed at scale. It’s not always about imagining the solution ­– for example, the kite. It’s about deploying it to make as big a positive impact as possible.”

Damien says that it is the breadth of skills and experience across the teams that make projects a success.

“We have experienced engineers that worked on how the sensors detected the kite’s position, but they needed our team’s help to help Beyond the Sea manage all the data collected by their system. Everyone has to work together – and that’s part of the culture here at Capgemini. When we do that, we start to build solutions that can really have an impact on sustainability. It’s good to know you are working on something that could have a really positive ecological impact on the world.”

Finding the right combination of expertise is also one way to summarize Thomas’s, Damien’s, and their teams’ work with Beyond the Sea, which brings together the latest technology with the power of natural resources. The answer, in this case, is blowing in the wind… and in AI, and in virtual simulation modeling.