General information
Organisation
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.
Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.
The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
Reference
2026-42210
Description de l'unité
The Intelligent, Distributed and Embedded Instrumentation Laboratory (LIIDE) develops an integrated hardware and software platform for designing the capabilities of future instrumentation systems. The laboratory focuses jointly on:
1. Hardware solutions consisting of versatile, modular electronic boards and the software required to operate them, supporting a broad range of sensor technologies.
2. Innovative artificial intelligence capabilities for distributed measurement and resource-efficient, distributed learning.
Position description
Category
Intrumentation, metrology and control
Contract
Internship
Job title
Internship Scalable Local Inversion for Real-Time Ultrasonic Imaging-Saclay-H/F
Subject
The internship aims to make a physics-informed local inversion method for ultrasonic imaging scalable to extended inspection areas and compatible with real-time operation. The work will address the structure of neighbouring local operators, the stitching of overlapping reconstruction windows, the transferability of learned parameters, and implementation efficiency.
Contract duration (months)
6 mois
Job description
As an intern at the CEA, you will have the opportunity to work within a world-renowned research environment. Our teams consist of passionate and dedicated experts, providing an ideal setting for learning and collaboration. You will have access to state-of-the-art equipment and top-tier research resources to carry out your assignments. The work conducted may potentially lead to a scientific publication.
Context :
Ultrasonic imaging from Full Matrix Capture data can exceed the resolution of the Total Focusing Method (TFM) when the individual transmitter-receiver contributions are inverted locally.

Local linear direct model
The current physics-informed unrolled method [1] can resolve point reflectors below the Rayleigh limit. The learned inversion parameters can also transfer across nearby depths.

Two point-like reflectors separated by 0.8 mm (left) and 0.4 mm (right). Top: TFM images. Middle: reconstructions obtained at
inference with configuration B. Bottom: lateral profiles at z = 16 mm. Blue crosses and dotted lines indicate the reflector positions.
However, the method currently processes isolated windows and requires the computation of large local operators.
Extending this approach to whole-component inspection requires a scalable strategy that preserves reconstruction quality while meeting real-time constraints.
The objective of the internship is to develop a scalable implementation of local ultrasonic inversion for extended inspection areas. The work will focus on identifying reusable structures across neighbouring operators, combining overlapping local reconstructions consistently, and determining how far locally learned parameters can transfer before retraining becomes necessary.
The internship work will include:
- analysing the spatial regularities and the low-rank or spectral structure of local operators;
- designing overlap and stitching strategies for neighbouring reconstruction windows;
- investigating parameter-transfer rules across windows;
- optimising the implementation.
[1] K. Diallo, F. M. Ngolè Mboula and F. Le Bourdais, “Physics-Informed Super-Resolved Ultrasonic Imaging,” 11th Junior Conference on Data Science and Engineering, 2026 [Online].
#Cea-List
Methods / Means
FMC ultrasonic data; Algorithm unrolling; PyTorch; parallel and GPU computing
Applicant Profile
The internship is intended for a final-year Master’s student or engineering student specialising in applied mathematics, signal processing or scientific computing.
The candidate should have strong Python programming and numerical optimisation skills. Experience with PyTorch, inverse problems, GPU programming or ultrasonic imaging would be an advantage.
Position location
Site
Saclay
Job location
France, Ile-de-France, Essonne (91)
Location
Saclay
Candidate criteria
PhD opportunity
Non
Requester
Position start date
01/03/2027