PhD defence of Anaïs Boumendil
Anaïs successfully defended her PhD thesis, “Towards energy-efficient machine learning models for resource-constrained platforms”. Congratulations, Anaïs!
About
I am a Full Professor (Professeur des universités) of computer science at Université Lumière Lyon 2 (ICOM), where I am a member of the Learning and Decision research team (LeaD, ERIC laboratory). I head the first year of the work-study Master's programme in computer science.
My research lies at the intersection of networking and applied machine learning. I work on low-cost wireless sensor networks for monitoring physical phenomena, cooperative drone fleets for mobile sensing, energy-efficient machine learning for resource-constrained devices, and data-aware, goal-oriented communication.
From 2013 to 2025, I was Associate Professor at INSA Lyon (Telecommunications department, CITI laboratory, Inria Agora team), where I still teach as adjunct professor. I received my PhD in computer science from Université de Technologie de Compiègne in 2012 and my engineering degree from ESI Algiers in 2009, both with distinction.
News
PhD defence of Mohamed Sami Assenine
Sami successfully defended his PhD thesis, “Reinforcement learning for mobility optimization in WSNs: application to pollution monitoring using drone fleets”. Congratulations, Sami!
Research stay at MIT
I was honoured to spend a research stay at MIT, in particular at the Mechatronics Research Laboratory (MRL), where I was hosted by Prof. Kamal Youcef-Toumi. During my stay, I gave a seminar and we laid the groundwork for future collaboration.
Welcome to Simon Weinberger
Simon joined us as a postdoctoral researcher under my supervision, to work on reinforcement learning for application-aware, self-adaptive communication protocols.
Joining Université Lumière Lyon 2
I joined Université Lumière Lyon 2 as a Full Professor. Many thanks to ICOM and the ERIC laboratory for their warm welcome. My teaching now focuses on computer science and machine learning, while machine learning applied to networking and sensing remains at the core of my research. I am deeply grateful to INSA Lyon for twelve rewarding years, and I keep close ties with the institution, where I continue to teach in the Telecommunications department.
Research
Current topics
- Data-aware and goal-oriented communication. Adaptive access and communication schemes that account for the value of the data being sent.
- UAV networks for monitoring highly dynamic pollution plumes. Spatio-temporal prediction architectures and reinforcement-learning-based path planning for drone fleets.
- Energy-efficient neural networks for resource-constrained platforms. Evaluation and comparison of pruning, data selection and growing networks; new data selection methods.
- Deployment and scheduling of sensor networks for air quality monitoring. Phenomenon-aware models for sensor placement and scheduling.
- Low-cost sensor platforms for air quality monitoring. Deployed in Lyon (2018), on an onshore industrial site (since 2019) and on an offshore industrial site (since 2021).
Projects
As coordinator
- ANR DRON-MAP
Drone fleets for monitoring pollution plumes in emergencies. Partners: CITI (Agora, Chroma), LMFA. - 3M'Air
Urban participatory sensing with connected sensors. Partners: CITI, LMFA, EVS, Atmo AURA, Ville de Lyon, Météo-France, Lyon Météo. - Industrial collaboration with TotalEnergies
Industrial applications of wireless sensor networks. - BQI
Bringing our air quality sensor platform up to industrial requirements. - UrPolSens
Wireless sensor networks for urban pollution monitoring. Partners: CITI, LMFA, IFSTTAR, EVS, TUBA, Atmo AURA. - Capt-PolAir
Practical issues of sensor network deployment for air quality monitoring.
As partner (selection)
- PEPR Future Networks, PC6 FITNESS
Data-driven adaptive access for dense networks. Task leader. - Scientific chair INSA Lyon / Spie ICS
AI for behavioural analysis of flows in digital infrastructures. Co-coordinator of the embedded AI axis. - Scientific chair INSA Lyon / Atmo AURA
Air quality, health, innovation and citizen engagement.
Supervision
PhD theses (defended)
- Anaïs Boumendil
Towards energy-efficient machine learning models for resource-constrained platforms. - Mohamed Sami Assenine
Reinforcement learning for mobility optimization in wireless sensor networks. - Ichrak Mokhtari
Spatio-temporal data analysis for dynamic phenomenon monitoring using mobile sensors. - Mohamed Anis Fekih
Low-cost wireless sensor networks in participatory air quality monitoring.
INSA Lyon thesis award 2023 - Ahmed Boubrima
Deployment and scheduling of wireless sensor networks for air pollution monitoring.
GDR RSD thesis award 2020 INSA Lyon thesis award 2020 SIF Gilles Kahn award, accessit 2019 - Sami Abdellatif
Device-to-device communications in post-disaster situations. - Abdessamed Sassi
Internet services based on users' mobility profiles.
Postdoctoral researchers and research engineers
- Simon Weinberger, postdoctoral researcher
Reinforcement learning for application-aware, self-adaptive communication protocols. - Alexandros Sidiras-Galante, research engineer
Optimization and industrial transfer of our air quality sensor platforms. - Manoël Dahan, research engineer
Design and development of autonomous low-cost sensor networks for air quality monitoring.
Internships and student projects
Since 2014, I have supervised about fifteen Master's and double-degree engineering internships, as well as dozens of R&D, final-year and introductory research projects.
Publications
Selected journal articles. Full list on DBLP and Google Scholar.
- On-device deep learning: survey on techniques improving energy efficiency of DNNs.
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems 36(5): 7806–7821, 2025. - UrMapSens: joint mapping-sensing design of WSNs for urban environmental monitoring.
IEEE Sensors Journal 24: 37894–37905, 2024. - Cooperative deep reinforcement learning for dynamic pollution plume monitoring using a drone fleet.
IEEE Internet of Things Journal 11(5): 7325–7338, 2024. - Heterogeneous IoT/LTE ProSe virtual infrastructure for disaster situations.
Journal of Network and Computer Applications 213: 103602, 2023. - Participatory air quality and urban heat islands monitoring system.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 70: 1–14, 2021. - On the deployment of wireless sensor networks for air quality mapping: optimization models and algorithms.
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 27(4): 1629–1642, 2019. - Optimal WSN deployment models for air pollution monitoring.
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 16(5): 2723–2735, 2017. - Joint connectivity-coverage temperature-aware algorithms for wireless sensor networks.
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems 26(7): 1923–1936, 2015. - A highly scalable key pre-distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks.
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 12(2): 948–959, 2013. - Temperature-aware density optimization for low power wireless sensor networks.
IEEE Communications Letters 17(2): 325–328, 2013. - A new class of hash-chain based key pre-distribution schemes for WSN.
Computer Communications 36(3): 243–255, 2013.
Teaching
Université Lumière Lyon 2 (since 2025)
| Deep learning | Master 2 Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (MALIA) |
| Supervised machine learning | Master 1 Computer Science |
| Advanced Python and object-oriented programming | Master 1 Computer Science |
| Advanced databases | Master 1 Computer Science |
| Compilation and lexical analysis | Licence 3 Computer Science |
| Algorithms and object-oriented programming | Licence 3 Computer Science |
INSA Lyon, Telecommunications department (2013–2025, main courses)
| Wireless network architecture and security | Engineering programme (M2 level), Telecommunications |
| Performance evaluation | Engineering programme (M1 level), Telecommunications |
| Network architectures and protocols | Engineering programme (M1 level), Telecommunications |
| Introduction to networking | Engineering programme (L3 level), Telecommunications |
| Introduction to wireless sensor networks | Engineering programme (L2 level) |
Professional training (since 2020)
| Neural networks and deep learning: an in-depth understanding to design, train and deploy models | Intensive training for engineers and data scientists (upcoming) |
| IoT networks with LoRa and LoRaWAN: architecture, protocols and deployment | Intensive training for engineers from various companies |
| Industrial cybersecurity: vulnerabilities and system hardening | Intensive training for engineers from various companies |
| IP and wireless networks: protocols, architecture and security | Intensive training for engineers from various companies |
Université de Technologie de Compiègne (2009–2013)
| Computer networks | Engineering programme |
| Wireless sensor networks | Engineering programme |
| Operating systems | Engineering programme |
| Data structures and algorithms | Engineering programme |
| Combinatorial optimization | Engineering programme |
Responsibilities
Current
- Head of the first year of the work-study Master's in computer science (M1 Informatique en alternance), Université Lumière Lyon 2.
Previously, at INSA Lyon and the CITI laboratory (selection)
- Head of the networking teaching group, Telecommunications department (2018–2025).
- Head of admissions, Telecommunications department (2014–2019).
- Elected member of the Telecommunications department council (2015–2019 and 2020–2024).
- Seminar coordinator, CITI laboratory (2013–2021).
- Appointed member of the Fédération Informatique de Lyon council (2018–2021).
- Co-organizer of the ResCom thematic day on communications in smart cities, Sophia Antipolis (2017).
Education & career
- Full Professor, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Institute of Communication (ICOM) and ERIC laboratory
- Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR), INSA Lyon
Contributions to wireless sensor networks for air quality monitoring. - Associate Professor (Maître de conférences), INSA Lyon, Telecommunications department and CITI laboratory
- PhD in computer science, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Heudiasyc laboratory (UMR CNRS 7253)
Security and energy saving in wireless sensor networks.
Guy Deniélou best thesis award 2013 - Engineering degree in computer science, École nationale supérieure d'informatique (ESI), Algiers
Valedictorian, ranked first all five years