Overall Presentation


DEFI was a joint research team between Inria Saclay Ile de France and Ecole Polytechnique, hosted by CMAP.

Since end of 2021, DEFI became IDEFIX, a joint research team between Inria Saclay Ile de France, Institut Polytechnique de Paris and EDF R&D, hosted by UMA, ENSTA Paris.



Main Research Interests :


The research activity of our team is dedicated to the design, analysis and implementation of efficient numerical methods to solve inverse and shape/topological optimization problems, eventually including system uncertainties, in connection with acoustics, electromagnetism, elastodynamics, diffusion, and fluid mechanics.

Sought practical applications include radar and sonar applications, bio-medical imaging techniques, non-destructive testing, structural design, composite materials, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, fluid-driven applications in aerospace/energy fields.

Roughly speaking, the model problem consists in determining information on, or optimizing the geometry (topology) and the physical properties of unknown targets from given constraints or measurements, for instance, measurements of diffracted waves or induced magnetic fields. Moreover, system uncertainties can ben systematically taken into account to provide a measure of confidence of the numerical prediction.

In general this kind of problems is non-linear. The inverse ones are also severely ill-posed and therefore require special attention from regularization point of view, and non-trivial adaptations of classical optimization methods.

Our scientific research interests are the following: We are particularly interested in the development of the following themes