The condition of bridges is a major safety issue for users. The information report published by the French Sénat in June 2019 highlighted the ageing of our bridge stock in France and the significant investment required for its maintenance and monitoring. The latest innovations in structural health monitoring offer new prospects for managers, which are more practical, more efficient, and less costly.
To address these challenges, the government launched in 2021 the “Connected Bridges” call for projects as part of the french National Bridges Program funded by France Relance and led by Cerema. The “Connected Bridges” call for projects was intended to bring new solutions that are more practical, more efficient, and less costly for local authorities to better monitor and maintain their bridges. This call for projects highlighted the potential offered by technical advances in sensors, imaging, and artificial intelligence (AI). These techniques, which have been in development for a long time, are now maturing and enabling progress in infrastructure management : imaging coupled with AI for the inspection of structures, sensors coupled with AI for predictive management.
From 2021 to 2023, the 17 winners were able to test monitoring solutions, predictive management tools, and AI data processing in real-world conditions on bridges managed by the french State or some local authorities.
This keynote will detail this “Connected Bridges” call for projects and summarizes its objectives, organization and main results. It will discuss how innovation can be a major lever for more predictive, reliable, and economical bridge management.

As the aerospace industry transitions from technology maturation to industrial implementation, Airbus is redefining the aircraft structural integrity framework through the lens of Digital-Physical Convergence. This keynote explores the journey of scaling Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) from local pilot cases to a fleet-wide Structural Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) ecosystem.
We address the integration of intelligent sensing—moving beyond raw data to high-value insights processed via the Skywise platform and Digital Twins. We will discuss the industrial challenges of managing large data sets per flight and the shift toward "tail-centric" dynamic maintenance.
Crucially, in coordination with evolving Industry standards like SAE ARP6821 , Airbus is maturing the "Maintenance Planning Window" concept. This allows for the safe management of known structural anomaly indications optimizing aircraft availability while ensuring a level of safety that meets or exceeds traditional inspection methods. The presentation calls for a unified effort across the aviation ecosystem to turn innovative sensing into operational reality.