SRM-AP All News
ALL News
- AutoNxt Automation visits campus February 28, 2020
Interactive session with industrial inventors
World’s First Electric, Autonomous TractorKaustubh Dhonde, CEO, Swadeep Pillarisetti, Advisor and Board Director, Sachin Gowda, Embedded Engineer, and Aswanth Mulupuri, Intern, Department of Automation of AutoNxt Automation – an innovative Mumbai based startup, visited SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh for a two-day program as a part of the National Science Day celebration at the campus. The company demonstrated their latest technological marvel, the World’s First Electric, Autonomous Tractor. “A lot of research is conducted globally with multiple companies working on the automation of on-road vehicles. However, off-road vehicles’ automation has hardly been touched upon previously, although there are less variables being controlled environments like farms, industrial plants, etc where it is more feasible a solution”, says Mr. Swadeep who has been advising the company which has brought about a revolutionary breakthrough in the domain of Indian agriculture.
Some of the exceptional features of the Electric Automated Tractor include fully electric drivetrain, low NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) levels, mobile application for interaction with the tractor, live tracking, geo fencing capabilities, battery and system status reports on mobile app, obstacle detection technology and optional automatic hydraulic control of implements. The company is also planning to develop a common charging point that will use free energy sources.
Students marveling at the automated tractor
Demonstration by the CEOAutoNxt Automation has created its niche by offering cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions to farming problems. Mr. Kaustubh believes “It is important that technology reaches out to the entire farmer class”. He further explains the crises of the Indian agricultural system that can be resolved using the Electric Automated Tractors, “The harvesting timeframe is narrow which increases the demand of skilled labour during this season, exponentially enhancing the cumulative cost of farming. The fully automated tractors embedded with camera identification systems and sensors reduce the operational expenses up to 4 times. Also, the IoT sensors give real-time feedbacks ensuring accuracy in tilling, ploughing, and spraying insecticide.”
The representatives of the company held a demonstrative session with the students and faculty on 26th February 2020, where they introduced the tractor and explained its technological viabilities. An interactive session was also held with the students on the same day. The session enabled the students to identify the practical applications of their acquired theoretical knowledge. The entrepreneurs inspired the students to create an impactful change that will eventually benefit society as a whole. Also, it creates an opportunity for them to be closely associated with people from the industry as well as the research domain. On the following day, a presentation was made to the faculty members of SRM AP to trigger discussions on technologies used by the Electric Automated Tractor. In the end, Mr. Kaustubh and Mr. Swadeep expressed their intent to involve students to work on real-time projects with the company, along with taking assistance from the faculty members to overcome hurdles pertaining to AI/ML technologies. Mr. Swadeep says, “The students will be exposed to real case studies, contribute to the improvement of the country, and in the process earn many accolades”.
Sachin Gowda interacting with the students - Dr. Atik’s Initiative on Better Understanding of Graphs using Matrices February 26, 2020
SERB Project in Mathematics
Dr. Fouzul Atik, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics in SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh has received a prestigious Start-up Research Grant (SRG) from Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Govt. of India.
Objective of the Grant:
This is a Start-up Research Grant (SRG) has a particular objective to assist researchers to start off their research career in a new institution. This two-year grant ushers in researchers in the domain of research from where they can escalate to the mainstream core research grants.
Selection and Nature of Support:
The selection for this grant is highly competitive and is based on the profile of the applicant and his proposed research plan. Nationwide only 500 grants are awarded per year across all subject areas.
The one-time research grant will cover equipment, manpower, consumables, travel and contingency apart from overheads. Applicant has the flexibility to propose budget under various heads as per requirement.About Dr. Fouzul Atik’s Project:
In his project titled as “Characterization of graphs by spectra of its distance and resistance matrix and some problems related to matrix theory and graph theory”, Dr. Atik is initiating the investigation of different properties of graphs with the help of several matrices associated with it. “In this project we will focus on the distance matrix and resistance matrix of graphs. Many challenging problems are there which are equally important in the fields of graph theory and matrix theory. We will try to solve few of them in this project.” Dr. Atik said.
Reference:
SERB, India – http://www.serb.gov.in/home.php
SRG – http://www.serb.gov.in/srgg.php
Dr. Fouzul Atik- https://srmap.edu.in/faculty/dr-fouzul-atik/
Continue reading → - Dr Sujith Kalluri’s research paper published in a reputed journal “Advanced Science” February 15, 2020
Replacing Cobalt with Nickel in Lithium-ion batteries
Dr. Sujith Kalluri, Assistant Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering, published a paper on “Building High-Rate Nickel-Rich Cathodes by Self organisation of Structurally Stable Macrovoid” in a highly reputed journal, “Advanced Science” having Impact Factor of 15.8. During his association with Samsung- UNIST Battery R&D Centre at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) South Korea, he began researching on the alternate battery cathodes for high-rate lithium-ion batteries, and proceeded the study at SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh.
Cathode is one of the key components of batteries used in portable smart devices (mobile phones). Presently, batteries comprise of Lithium Cobalt Oxide as a cathode. Dr. Kalluri’s research focuses on the fast mobility of the lithium-ions present inside the battery with respect to the applied electricity. In his path-breaking study, he designed a new cathode for batteries, which is Lithium Nickel-rich transition metal oxide. He explains the supremacy of his designing Nickel-rich cathode, “When we did thorough electro-chemical and electrical studies, the lithium-ion batteries infused with nickel-rich cathode exhibited higher performance in terms of high current operations and elevated temperatures. Also, the Nickel-rich based lithium-ion batteries are a cost-effective substitute as the major portion of Cobalt is replaced with Nickel, a cheaper metal. These batteries can be employed in portable electronic devices and in larger scale, can be a promising candidate for e-mobility appliances.”
The research of Dr. Kalluri also aims at improving the “high current rate operation” which will ensure fast charging of portable devices and electric vehicles. When asked regarding his future research plans, he says “At SRM AP, we are establishing SRM – Amara Raja Centre for Energy Storage Devices in association with Amara Raja Batteries Limited. In this centre, we are planning to further optimize the lithium-ion battery technology, and also we will look beyond and try to implement sodium-ion battery technology for societal demands.”
Continue reading → - 27th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
ICSEng 2020 February 14, 2020Dr. Vadivel organises Special Session 3 (SS3)
Dr. A. Vadivel, Associate Professor- Department of Computer Science and Engineering in SRM University, AP- Andhra Pradesh is organising a Special Session at 27th International Conference on Systems Engineering at Las Vegas in USA. Details about this conference can be found below-
Conference Organisers:
This series of International Conferences is jointly organized on a rotational basis among three institutions:
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA;
- Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland; and
- Coventry University, UK.
In 2018, the series of the conferences was joined by University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Date & Place of the Conference:
Between August 25-27, 2020, in Las Vegas, NV, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.
Scope of Conference:
The Conference will cover the general area of Systems Engineering, with particular emphasis on placedon applications. It is expected to include sessions on the themes given at: http://www.icseng.com/topics.php
Dr. Vadivel is organising Special Session 3 (SS3)- Deep Video Analytics and Big Visual Data: Computational Models, Algorithms and Applications. Details about this session can be found at
http://www.icseng.com/sessions.php
The proceedings are published in the Springer series Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems and are indexed by ISI Web of Science Proceedings, DBLP, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, and Springerlink. Selected papers will be published in the Open Computer Science Journal and the International Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications.
Important dates:
- Papers due: March 21, 2020
- Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2020
- Paper registration due: May 17, 2020
- Camera-ready (final) papers: May 17, 2020
Special Session Organizer:
Dr. A. Vadivel
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
SRM University, AP- Andhra Pradesh
Neerukonda, Mangalagiri Mandal, Mangalagiri
Andhra Pradesh 522502, India
E-mail ID: vadivel.a@srmap.edu.in
Important Links/ Reference:
Main Website: http://www.icseng.com/
Submission of Papers:http://www.icseng.com/submission.php
Registration: http://www.icseng.com/registration.php
- Dr. Anil K. Suresh has been awarded gold medal for his impactful research January 23, 2020
Cancer research to address future challenges in early diagnosis and treatments
Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy recognized the pioneering research of Dr. Anil K. Suresh, Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, SRM University, AP by honoring him with the “Outstanding Researcher Gold Medal Award” on December 20th, 2019 at Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology & Research, Guntur. Dr. Anil’s revolutionary research encompasses nano-technology enabled smart nanobeads for cancer theranostic and clinical medicine. Through his research, he designs nanoparticles for timely diagnosis and targeted treatment of the otherwise terminal diseases to solve future challenges in biomedicine. The primary objective of one of his DBT funded research projects “Direct removal of multi-drug resistant cells out of blood” is aimed at cancer specific Ab-mediated direct removal of leukemia out of our blood using nanomagnets as an alternative to chemotherapy.
Mortality due to cancer has barely decreased in decades, despite an exponential increase in the development of efficient treatment processes. However, sub-groups of patients with a variety of tumor types including lung, bladder, and kidney have witnessed a dramatic curative success using immunotherapy. While such breakthroughs offer the hope of prolonged survival for some patients with advanced cancers, finding cancers at an early stage is a critical parameter that would substantially improve the chances of cure. The survival rates for patients with early diagnoses are five to ten times higher, accentuating the necessity of research targeting accurate diagnosis at an initial stage of cancer. Dr. Anil K Suresh along with his team researches to enable diagnosis and localized treatment of early stage invasive cancers (in some cases, pre-invasive states).
Dr. Anil recalls, “I was like any other researcher doing basic research on nanoscience and nanotechnology until I got an opportunity to work at Beckman Cancer Research Institute, where I often witnessed several cancer patients including young kids and women yelling in agony while undergoing chemo or radio therapy. Since then I became intensively stubborn, and am sincerely striving to the best of my abilities to diagnose and treat cancer, with an hope of giving cancer patients an human-friendly painless therapeutic option.
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What inspires me the most is my fervor to eradicate suffering and my passion to cure! I personally believe that suffering in any form is painful, especially when a person is diseased with hard to cure life threatening diseases such as HIV, Diabetes, Cancer, etc. “- Bennet Benny (B.Sc. Physics, second year) wins Sakura Internship Program-2019 at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) November 5, 2019
Bennet Benny has been honoured with the opportunity to attend an internship under the supervision of Prof. Ryo Maezono at JAIST, Japan. Established in 1990, JAIST is one of the research-intensive institutes for post-graduate studies located in the centre of Ishikawa Science Park (ISP). The internship is funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), a government funding agency.
Under the guidance of Prof. Ranjit Thapa, Bennet had applied for the internship in March. This internship begins on 16th December and will continue till 24th December,2019. Bennet will be given hands-on tutorial on electronic structure calculations using DFT and QMC computational methods on one of the supercomputers located at JAIST. He will be joined by five other students from Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia.
“I am very excited to be given this opportunity as it will provide me with excellent practical experience and ample exposure that will be helpful to build my career.”, says Bennet and further expresses his gratitude towards Prof. D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, SRM University AP, and Dr. Sabyasachi Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics for their immense encouragement and guidance.
Continue reading →- Pro VC, Prof. D. Narayana Rao awarded with Fellowship of the Indian Science Congress October 26, 2019
Prof. D. Narayana Rao receives honoured for his outstanding contributions to Physical Sciences
Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Pro Vice Chancellor, SRM University-AP, Amaravati has been conferred with the Fellowship of the Indian Science Congress (FISC) for his outstanding contributions to Physical Sciences.
The Fellowship has been awarded to Prof. Rao by the Indian Science Congress Association at their Council Meeting held in Bangalore on 16th October 2019. The main objective of ISCA is to advance and promote the cause of Science in India, recognize and support excellence in scientific research, technologies and innovations. Prof. Rao’s outstanding achievements and sustainable significant contributions to sciences were recognised and honoured.
SRM University AP organized a felicitation ceremony for Prof. Rao on this occasion where he encouraged the professors to pursue research by stating its significance. The ceremony was chaired by Dr. D Gunasekaran (Registrar), Dr. B Sivakumar (Deputy Registrar), and Dr. Anil K Suresh (Associate Professor, Biotechnology) who congratulated Prof. Rao on his achievements along with the faculty and staff members of the university.
Continue reading →- WOMEN IN MACHINE LEARNING AND DATA SCIENCE September 26, 2019
WiMLDS Amaravati Chapter at SRM AP founders: Sowjanya Naidu Nelli, Abirami Ravishankar and Aakanksha Chouhan
The Amaravati chapter of WiMLDS will work out of the SRM AP campus to provide support and promote women and gender minorities from the entire Amaravati region who are practicing, studying or interested in the field of machine learning and data science. The Amaravati chapter has the added distinction of having the youngest founding members of the worldwide WiMLDS network.
Abirami believes this initiative is important for several reasons, “Empowering women particularly from our region to pursue ML and AI irrespective of their tech/non-tech background, encourages diversity, economic growth, and equality across socio-economic backgrounds.”
WiMLDS has chapters in North America, Africa, Middle East, Europe, South Africa, Asia and Australia. The Amaravati chapter at SRM AP is the newest one in India.
“This organization (chapter) is looking to create opportunities for members to engage in technical and professional conversations in a positive, supportive environment by hosting talks by women and gender minority individuals working in data science or machine learning, as well as hosting technical workshops, networking events and hackathons.” says founder Aakanksha Chouhan.
The fields of Machine Learning and Data Science are growing exponentially both in real life applications and in academia. “Nature has always incentivized the human race when we observe accurate patterns in it,” says Sowjanya, “We used to call it ‘predictions’ till the 1950’s; now it goes by the name of Machine learning and Data Science.”
Aakanksha learned of this WiMLDS at PyCon Italy. “There I met members of WiMLDS from the Poland and Paris chapters. Subsequently, through the mentors at Next Tech lab we got to participate in a live talk session on ‘Women in ML & DS” conducted by Shubhi Sareen of Google Hyderabad who is also a member of WiMLDS Delhi. This led to a conversation with Erin Ledell, founder WiMLDS organization and the Bay Area chapter head and the subject of Amaravati came up and soon this chapter was established.
According to Aakanksha, Machine learning and more appropriately AI is forcing us away from simple and repetitive tasks towards solving real life problems and incubating new ideas. “The shift from ‘if I can’ to ‘how I can’ is exciting! And we can agree that these wonderful communities that exist have contributed immensely to push the human race forward and I’m happy to see that – we’re innovating!”
http://wimlds.org/about-the-amaravati-team/
Twitter : WiMLDS_AMVT
Instagram : wimldsamaravati
Women in Machine Learning and Data Science – 2019 Inauguration WiMLDS – Amaravati Chapter
Full Text – Jessie Papatolicas address
Continue reading →- NARL lab facilities proposed for collaborative multi-disciplinary research September 25, 2019
7th September 2019: Visiting dignitary, Dr. T. Narayana Rao, Sr. Scientist at NARL (National Atmospheric Research Laboratory at Gadanki, Department of Space described the research facilities at the lab and how academia and SRM AP faculty can share these resources to advance their research projects.
According to Dr. Rao, NARL is studying the erroneous GPS signals often caused by atmospheric changes, “NARL scientists are working on studying the atmospheric conditions by deciphering these flawed GPS signals. This is a necessary step as the accuracy of the readings and interpretation is crucial to assess atmospheric pressure, humidity, weather conditions while sending signals to ISRO launch pads.”
With regard to the specific research facilities at NARL, Dr. Rao spoke of the world’s second-largest phased array radar, the sophisticated radio, optical and acoustic instruments. These resources at NARL as well as access to the high-performance computing system of 1.5 Petaflop provides opportunities for academicians, scientists, research scholars and students in different disciplines including physics, chemistry, electronics, computer science and environmental science. Prof. Ranjit Thapa, Department of Physics says, “High-performance computing system deployed by computational researchers can solve critical research problems such as ‘self-healing materials’, ‘catalyst for CO2 and N2 reduction’, and ‘high energy density organic materials’.”
Dr. Rao further spoke of possible faculty participation in combined research studies on the surface and upper atmosphere using advanced MST radar and Lidars. Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice Chancellor highlighted that the central facility of NARL, access to advanced resources and equipment, and opportunity to submit projects in the globally recognized platform validates the importance of carrying out collaborative research with NARL.
Continue reading →- “Cost is the factor that connects all the dots.” Dr.Rajendran on the future of bioenergy September 7, 2019
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests the temperature rise should be limited to 1.5°C by the end of this century for the world to survive, “says Dr. Karthik Rajendran, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Science. “For this, we need to reduce the emission by almost 50% of 2010 levels.” He further points out that while we may produce electric cars instead of petrol cars, electricity from solar and wind instead of coal, natural gas biologically as biogas instead of shale gas one question is at the center of these technologies – cost.
Dr. Rajendran’s quest to understand the factors influencing commercial viability of bioenergy systems began in Chennai during his bachelors’ thesis on hydrogen production leading subsequently to numerous lab simulations to understand the bottlenecks of commercialization.
On techno-economic analysis as an early indicator of commercial viability
Techno-economic analysis is an examination of various specifications of the technology at its inception stage when it is merely an experiment in a conical flask. “We analyze components on basis of all aspects of technology, economic feasibility, environmental sustainability, market realization and social integration. We can identify bottlenecks early on that hasten the technology out of the laboratory towards commercialization. This enables us to more accurately predict the fate of bioenergy/bio-based product developed out of laboratory.”
The role of institutional and government support
“In my Masters studies at UB Sweden I realized not all technologies being developed in labs are successful and that economics is not the only component that hinders commercialization. We need good institutional and governmental policy, including technical support, to advance such clean energy systems. This is when I started working on integrating technology, economics, and government policy. I compared different European technologies including biogas, electric cars, solar, and wind to understand the role of state/government subsidies towards green technology development. What I found was that electric car technologies for example do little to prevent C02 emissions, yet they receive more incentives from the government compared with other renewable energy systems. It’s about the source of electricity. Be it coal or wind plant if it’s not a green electricity source it is not a green vehicle.”
The science of energy waste conversion
Dr. Karthik Rajendran’s initial research on bioenergy production from waste looked specifically at hydrogen from algae. He currently focuses on bioenergy with carbon capture and utilization with the cost factor being the main parameter. Dr. Rajendran explains how this works. “For example, due to long term storage issues excess solar or wind energy spills over and is wasted. This excess electricity is converted to hydrogen through electrolysis. Then the hydrogen can be combined with CO2 from a bioenergy system to produce methane. This is known as Sabatier reaction. In Europe this research is happening with an aim to convert existing gas grids to a green gas grid by 2050.”
Several of Dr. Rajendran’s published papers examine electro fuels, circular bio economy and techno-economic analysis.
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