This text is part of the special section Relève en recherche
Improving the design and training protocols in racing car simulators to avoid accidents is what a doctoral student in administration at HEC Montreal is working on. Portrait of Théophile Demazure, passionate about information technologies.
Landed in Quebec from his native Switzerland nearly ten years ago, the young doctoral student is interested in car racing simulators, within a project of the Tech3Lab laboratory. “In these simulators, the user receives a lot of information all at once, because everything is going very fast,” he explains.
Thus, he works to understand where the brain fixes its attention and what are the elements it ignores, for example in a turn or in a straight line. “Is it the visual or the movement of the chair that is the most important”, he illustrates. This information is then used to perfect the design and training protocols of simulators for cars, which are more like NASCAR vehicles than Formula 1 cars.
In addition to seeking to improve simulators, Théophile Demazure also wishes to understand how humans evolve in this context. A simulation that he wants to bring as close as possible to reality on the ground. “Often people practice before going into the real environment which is very risky. We are going to study how they do it to try to reduce the risks when making the change from this simulated environment to the runway or the cockpit, ”he explains.
Paternal influences
Théophile Demazure got his interest in simulators from his father, who himself was fond of aviation in his spare time. “There were small planes everywhere in our house. My father often played games and simulators on weekends, ”recalls the young researcher of his childhood spent in Geneva.
If he concedes that he has never been a real “passionate” pilot, he has always found the hobby of his father “more or less cool “. He adds that he is interested in different things due to his curious temper. Thus, it was quite natural that he began to work on simulator projects in contexts with high human performance, during his master’s degree.
“I found it very interesting. So I spent my entire master’s degree on the subject of sustained attention, monitoring systems, ”he says of his master’s thesis on a project in collaboration with NASA researchers. His work led him to explore ways to combat attention loss during long-term surveillance tasks.
“The hypothesis was quite simple: the more we automate the work, the more the human being will serve as a safety valve. He will no longer do the work, but, on the other hand, he will always be there to make sure that everything goes well in case there is an error, ”explains the doctoral student.
His master’s thesis on the subject earned him the Prize for the best thesis for the year 2018, awarded by HEC. For 2019-2020, he also received a doctoral research scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT) and another from the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO). “It helps fund this research, which is generally very expensive. It is important to have this funding, otherwise it quickly becomes difficult and too expensive on my scale, ”explains Théophile Demazure.
Consider the future in Quebec
Anyone who believes that his first year in Montreal “was not easy” due to the fact that he did not know anyone when he arrived has today “no regrets”. “I made some great friends. Now, I am very integrated in Quebec. I love it and I have no plans to leave. I can see myself staying. I fell in love with Quebec and Quebecers, ”says Théophile Demazure.
The young researcher also hopes to complete his doctorate within two years. What will he do next? He still doesn’t know. The idea of remaining in the teaching profession to pass on his knowledge attracts him as much as the option of holding a job in the research and development industry. “One of the important factors is that I would like to stay in Quebec. I think that will play a lot on the choice that I will make ”, he advances however.
He also wants his father, who is passionate about games and aviation, to be able to visit him from Geneva to test one of the simulators he works on.