Didier Wautier

Didier Wautier is a graduate of École Centrale-Supelec (85), specializing in image, signal and sensor processing. He began his career at Philips as an image processing engineer before joining Thales as manager of various ground and airborne optronic systems. In 2001, he joined Renault as manager of the ADAS research department, then the vehicle development department, before taking charge of innovation projects for the alliance on the digital validation of multidomain inter-systems. Since 2016, Wautier has been head of the synthesis and immersive simulation department, in charge of building and validating digital twins through simulation (cloud computing) and immersive means (customer-in-the-loop). He manages the 'ROADS' immersive simulation center, which includes not only the large dynamic driving simulator but also static, lighting, virtual reality and phygital simulators.

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Presentation

From digital vehicle to virtual twin to immersive virtual twin

The digitalization of Renault Group is not new, but it is intensifying as the company transforms itself into a 'tech company'. This is essential to keep pace with the growing technological complexity of vehicles, the ever-increasing number of technical and regulatory requirements and the continuous improvement of existing and future vehicles in a connected world. In recent years, the tools available to design and engineering have become so advanced that virtual reality has overtaken physical reality. The digital twin exists before the vehicle itself, and evolves throughout the design process, including the customer in the design loop. Depending on the stage of the project, the terms used are digital vehicles, digital twin and immersive digital twin. Their fields of application range from design and development to tuning and homologation.