7-13 June, 2014 - Science and Engineering Research …serb.gov.in/pdfs/Publications/Kulkarni Report ssr.report...First SERB Summer School on Robotics 7-13 June, 2014 School Report

First SERB Summer School on Robotics

7-13 June, 2014

School Report

Sponsored by:

Science and Engineering Research

Board, DST, Government of India

Organized by:

Indian Institute of Information Technology,

Allahabad

First SERB Summer School on Robotics, IIIT Allahabad iii

At a Glance

7 days school, featuring

45 hours of lectures (excluding breaks),

4 hours of lab assignments and

1 special workshop on proposal writing.

9 academic speakers from

6 institutions and

4 robotics companies.

12 projects demonstrated,

12 presented,

1 panel discussion,

2 sightseeing tours,

3 cultural nights and

1 event banquet.

65 applications received,

55 applications shortlisted,

37 participants registered and

35 participants attended from

20 institutions

18 cities and

13 states

First SERB Summer School on Robotics, IIIT Allahabad v

Table of Contents

S. No. Contents Page

Nos.

Preliminary

At a Glance ...............................................................................................................

iii

Table of Contents .....................................................................................................

v

Contents

1. About Summer School on Robotics ........................................................................ 1

2. Course Objective ...................................................................................................... 1

3. Technical Advisory Committee & Resource Persons .............................................. 2

4. Organizing Committee ............................................................................................. 3

5. List of Participants .................................................................................................... 4

6. List of Talks: Academic ........................................................................................... 5

7. List of Talks: Industrial ............................................................................................ 5

8. Laboratory based Demonstrations ............................................................................ 6

9. Hands-on Practice ..................................................................................................... 6

10. Presentations and Discussions .................................................................................. 7

11. Day-wise Report ....................................................................................................... 8

12. Day 1: Summer School on Robotics Inaugurated with a great zeal ......................... 9

13. Day 2: The Summer School Intensifies with Heavy Expert Lectures ...................... 11

14. Day 3: A Comprehensive display of Robotics Research at IIIT Allahabad ............. 13

15. Day 4: Live Demonstration of Robotics Research at the summer school ................ 14

16. Day 5: Industry Showers its Expertise in the Summer School ................................. 16

17. Day 6: Heavy Discussions and Interactions at the last days of the Summer School 17

18. Day 7: The Summer School comes to an end with heavy expectations ................... 18

19. And so it all ends ...................................................................................................... 20

20. Photo Gallery ............................................................................................................ 21

21. Feedback Form Analysis .......................................................................................... 23

22. Quotes from Some Selected Participants ................................................................. 25

23. Outcomes .................................................................................................................. 27

24. Conclusions and Recommendations .........................................................................

28

Annexures

A. Schedule ................................................................................................................... 29

B. Brochure ...................................................................................................................

30

First SERB Summer School on Robotics, IIIT Allahabad 1

About Summer School on Robotics

Robotics is a very promising and challenging technology, which has led to increased research

and development by leading academic institutions and corporate companies worldwide. Robotic

technologies showcase a promising future, solving many challenging problems of the modern

world, progressing towards a world where every laborious, routine, boring, dirty or dangerous

job would be done by robotic slaves while the humans would be for more creative and interesting

tasks. The promising future comes with a need to solve key challenges which are currently

scattered throughout the different problems of robotics. These challenges make robotics an ideal

playground for researches, enabling them use their skills and expertise to the maximum, creating

technologies which will have a massive impact. The interdisciplinary nature of robotics ensures

that people of all fields have a role to play and challenges to conquer, thus also learning in a

massively collaborative and interdisciplinary environment.

The summer school on robotics is a unique step to gather top level intellectuals from different

domains and house them in an inspiring environment, urging them for innovative research in

different domains of robotics. The school is aimed at inviting academicians and industry people

from top institutions and enable them to delve into the domain. From getting motivation and

introductory insights, to highlighting of state-of-the-art and key research challenges, the school

aims to equip the participants with every skill needed to pursue sophisticated research in

robotics, in pursuit of a bright future of India in the international robotics arena.

Course Objective

In View of IIITA's inherent strength in the area of Robotics, the Program Advisory Committee

(PAC) of Mechanical, Robotics and Manufacturing of DST suggested that a week long Summer

School under the umbrella of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of

Science and Technology, Govt. of India, can be conducted at the Institute. Since the number of

research proposals received by the PAC are very few, it’s matter of concern that available

funding is not being utilized properly by the researchers in this very important area. With the

view of this, the DST PAC wanted a series of Summer Schools on Robotics to be organized for

teachers and researchers to make them aware about the vast possibility in the area of Robotics.

Towards this effect IIITA had been chosen to conduct the 1st SERB Summer School on

Robotics. Using the strong background of in-house research in the domain, the school also aimed

to introduce the participants with the present state-of-the-art software and hardware available at

IIIT Allahabad together with the recent developments in the area of Robotics and Artificial

Intelligence.

The objective is to enable the young researchers to get the project funding from various funding

agencies and give them further opportunities to strengthen their research in this important area. It

is a strong belief that such SERB schools will help in creating critical mass of researchers in the

area of robotics which will be reflected in getting quality project proposals by the PAC in this

area.

2 First SERB Summer School on Robotics, IIIT Allahabad

Technical Advisory Committee & Resource

Persons

Prof. G. C. Nandi

Chairperson, Summer School

IIIT-A

Dr. Prabir K. Pal

Scientist, BARC

Dr. Anil Parab

VP, L&T

Prof. Ashish Dutta

IIT Kanpur

Prof. Ashokan Thodiyath

IIT Chennai

Prof. Ashitava Ghosal

IISc Bangalore

Prof. Dilip K. Pratihar

IIT Kharagpur

Prof. S. K. Saha

IIT Delhi

Shri Sanjay Barman

CAIR Bagalore

Dr. M. Santhakumar

IIT Indore

Dr. Alok Mukherjee

R&D Eng. Pune

Prof. Debjani Mitra

ISM Dhanbad

Prof. Amit Konar

Jadavpur University

Shri S. Ramakrishnan

VSSC Trivadrum


Organizing Committee

Chairperson

Prof. G. C. Nandi

Professor & Dean of Academic Affairs

IIIT-Allahabad

Coordinators

Dr. Pavan Chakraborty

IIIT-Allahabad

Dr. Satish Kr. Singh

IIIT-Allahabad

Dr. Rahul Kala

IIIT-Allahabad

Dr. Vrijendra Singh

IIIT-Allahabad

Committee Members

Mr. Anup Nandy

IIIT-Allahabad

Mr. Avinash Kumar Singh

IIIT-Allahabad

Volunteers

All students, research scholars and staff of

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory


List of Participants

S. No. Name Affiliation

1 Ajay Kaul Mata Vaishnav University

2 Akhilendra Pratap Singh NIT Meghalaya

3 Akshay Nagarajan Amrita University

4 Amit Gautam CIC Delhi University

5 Anada Sankar Kundu Bengal Enginerring College

6 Anuj Mahajan Mata Vaishnav University

7 Dawood A Khan Central University of Kashmir

8 K. Balaji IIITDM Kancheepuram

9 M. Sengottuvelan BITS Anna University

10 M. Vasanth Kumar PSG College

11 Mukul Kumar Gupta UPES Dehradun

12 Oishee Mazumder Bengal Engineering College

13 Panduranga V. IIT Bhubneswar

14 Pankaj Kumar Sa NIT Rourkella

15 Prabin Kumar Jha LNMIIT Jaipur

16 Pradeep Singh NIT Raipur

17 Pradyut Kumar Biswal IIIT Bhubaneswar

18 Prakash Kumar Ray IIIT Bhubaneswar

19 Punith Reddy V. IIITDM Kancheepuram

20 Rahul E. S. AMMACHI Lab

21 Rajesh Doria NIT Raipur

22 Ranjith R. Amrita University

23 Ratnakar Das NIT Rourkella

24 Ritwik Chatarjee IIEST Sibpur

25 S. K. Dinesh BITS Anna University

26 Sai Gunaranjan IISc Bangalore

27 Sarath M. IIITM Kerla

29 Shanker Ganesh R. LNMIIT Jaipur

29 Sharad K. Pradhan NITTTR Bhopal

30 Shashank Srivastava MNNIT Allahabad

31 Sheikh Nasurllah Central University of Kashmir

32 Subramani T. PSG College

33 T. V. Sreenivas IISc Bangalore

34 Twisha Dhingra CIC Delhi University

35 W. Wilfred Godfrey IIITM Gwalior


List of Talks

Academic

S. No. Name and Affiliation Talk Title

1. G. C. Nandi,

Chairperson, Summer School,

IIIT Allahabad

Introduction to Robotics

Workshop on Proposal Writing

Locomotion Control of Biped Humanoids

2. D. K. Pratihar,

IIT Kharagpur Role of Soft Computing to Design and

Develop Intelligent Robots

3. A. Thodiyath,

IIT Madras

Dynamics and Control of Underwater Robotic

Vehicles

Medical Robotics and Applications

4. S. K. Saha,

IIT Delhi

Robot Kinematics with RoboAnalyzer

Recursive Robot Dynamics

5. A. Banerji,

BARC Telepresence: The state of the art remote

handling technology

6. S. Mukherjee,

IIT Delhi

Teleoperation with Haptics

Optimal Control for Planar Manipulation

7. M. Santhakumar,

IIT Indore

Applications of Nonlinear Control and

Observer Schemes in Robot Motion Control

Ongoing Robotics research at IIT Indore

8. Rahul Kala,

IIIT Allahabad Robot Motion Planning:

Approaches and Research Issues

9. S. Chaudhury,

IIT Delhi Robot Vision & Mobile Robotics

Industrial

S. No. Company Name Robots Demonstrated

1. KUKA Robotics Robot Manipulator Arm: AGILUS

Mobile Manipulation Unit: Youbot

2. National Instruments MyRIO

3. NUGENIX 6 DOF Manipulation Arm: JACO

4. ASIMOV Robotics Robotic Puppy, Bioloid (via Skype)

Manipulation Arms (via Skype)

Some Robots Demonstrated


Laboratory based Demonstrations

S. No. Name and Affiliation Demonstration Title

1. Avinash Kumar Singh Robot Vision

2. Sainul Islam, Ankit Sharma Robot Operating System (ROS)

3. Safeer Afaque Autonomous Navigation Testbed

(ANT)

4. Neha Joshi, Kumar Saurav Microprocessor

5. Manish Raj, Arpit Bansal Non-linear Dynamics

6. Anil Kumar Speech based Gesture Recognition

3-link Manipulator Control

7. Neha Singh, Ashna Sharma Webots Simulator

Vision based Gesture Recognition

8. Vijay Bhaskar,

Ashutosh Katiyar

Data Collection and Prediction

Opensim Simulator

9. Prakhar Mohan, Anant Raj,

Deep Chakraborty

'SMART' Humanoid Robot

Hexapod

Hands-on Practice

S. No. Lab Title

1.

Robot Motion Planning using:

o A* Algorithm

o Probabilistic Roadmap

o Rapidly-exploring Random Trees

o Bi-directional Rapidly-exploring Random

Trees

o Genetic Algorithm

o Fuzzy Logic

o Artificial Potential Fields

2. Improving Probabilistic Roadmaps for efficient

roadmap construction

SMART

Bioloid Hexapod Autonomous Navigation

Testbed (ANT)


Presentations and Discussions

S. No. Name and Affiliation Poster Title

1. Akanksha Pathak Gait Identification Using Component Based Gait

Energy Image Analysis

2. Anup Nandy An efficacy on Development of Human Gait

Biometric System for Personal Identification

3. Arpit Bansal, Manish Raj Stability analysis and Chaos in Bipedal Locomotion

4. Avinash Kumar Singh Face Liveness Detection Through Face Structure

Analysis

5. Vijay Bhaskar Semwal Humanoid Push Recovery: A Step Towards

Sophisticated Social Robots

6. Chandra Shekhar Ram Speech Based Control of an Autonomous Robot for

Object Grasping

7. Chandra Shekhar Ram, Manish Raj Cellular Automata based Pseudo Random Sequence

Generator

8. Manish Sharma Bipedal Walking Mathematical Modelling and

Control

9. Neha Baranwal Human Robot Interaction in Multimodal

Environment

10. Neha singh Indian Sign language Hand gestures recognition for

Human Computer Interaction

11. Safeer Afaque Low Cost Autonomous Outdoor Navigation using

Subsumption Architecture

12. Varun Kumar Static Hand Gesture Recognition using Deep

Learning


Day-wise Report

Apart from all sophisticated industries today, robots are widely used for tasks like support to the

elderly people, doing dirty jobs like cleaning, operating in hazardous environments, etc. Robots

can be the solutions for many other challenging problems that India is facing or is expected to

face in the future. Very soon we may expect Humanoid robot in every household like mobile

phone. Seeing its tremendous application potentials, the Department of Science and Technology,

Government of India clearly identified robotics as a thrust area for research and development,

realizing the need to build advanced robots and the associated technologies. The Science and

Engineering Research Board (SERB) of the Department of Science and Technology took

forward the initiative to boost research in robotics, especially in the areas of Humanoids and

Social Robots and decided to organize a series of summer schools in robotics. The Indian

Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-Allahabad) was asked to organize the first

week long school of the series, considering the high quality teaching and research standards of

the institute in the domain. The team at IIIT-Allahabad was headed by Prof. G. C. Nandi, who

also serves an a member of the Program Advisory Committee of the robotics division of the

board, and is well-known as a leading researcher in robotics with a vast experience and an

international reputation.

The school was aimed at encouraging faculty members and other researchers write quality

research funding proposals in robotics, and proceed with successful project implementation and

completion. The summer school looked into all aspects of it, including writing of research

proposals, knowledge of the state-of-the-art research, demonstration of cutting edge research at

IIIT-Allahabad, demonstration of modern tools for scientific research and hands-on lab sessions.

All this makes the school one of its kind in the academic horizon of the country, and IIIT-

Allahabad was proud to bring such a novel initiative on the famous educational and spiritual city

of Allahabad.

All government and private funding agencies are very conscious of what they fund. Proposal and

successful implementation of projects is an art that only the most elite group of scientists and

researchers master at. Hence the summer school was very conscious about its intake of

participants. Out of numerous applications received during the registration period, only the most

deserving candidates were selected, who are either already celebrated names of their domain

coming from institutes of national importance, or in their initial careers with an excellent

academic record speaking about their bright future. Most of the participants were faculties in

their respective organizations, although some senior research scholars were also allowed to

attend considering their keen interest in the school. A consideration was also given for

maintenance of the geographical diversity. The participant range spanned from Kashmir to

Kanyakumari, including prestigious institutions like Central University of Kashmir, IISc

Bangalore, IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIITM Gwalior, NIT Raipur, Amrita University, LNMIIT Jaipur,

NIT Rourkela, etc.

And when the participants are of such caliber and expertise, what would the trainers be? The

speakers at the school were all leading robotics researches in India who all cover a diverse set of


topics in robotics including robot vision, control, humanoids, rehabilitation and assistive

robotics, etc. It was remarkable to see that all robotics experts in the country united to knit a

wonderful curriculum for the course. However the participants had a very hard time with lecture

classes and lab sessions starting from 9:00 in the morning till 7:00 in the evening, and some

home work to do after the school as well! Some of the speaker are Prof. G. C. Nandi, IIIT

Allahabad; Prof. D. K. Pratihar, IIT Kharagpur; Prof. S. K. Saha, IIT Delhi; Dr. A. Thodiyath,

IIT Madras; Dr. S. Chaudhury, IIT Delhi; Dr. A. Banerji, Bhaba Atomic Research Centre; Dr. S.

Mukherjee, IIT Delhi etc.

The school had not only created a buzz in the academic and scholarly arena of the country, the

response from the industry was even more encouraging. Corridors of IIIT Allahabad, in the

week, showcased sophisticated robots, mobile bases, robotic hands and manipulators, etc. Each

of these was a beautiful and expensive piece, that very few laboratories can afford to show. Such

an illustrious exhibition is only to be seen at top international robotics conferences, which

greeted the participants of the school. As an example Nugenix, a famous supplier of robots,

showcased the robot arm JACO which is to be found in very few top educational institutes; while

National Instruments took a workshop on its tools and technologies.

The MTech and PhD students of IIIT Allahabad had also been given a golden opportunity to

present posters and demonstrate their work in front of an elite panel of speakers and participants.

Weeks before the event the students started preparing themselves for their demonstrations.

Day 1: Summer School on Robotics

Inaugurated with a great zeal

The school kick started with a display of great passion and enthusiasm amongst the participants.

The school had invited applications from faculties and research scholars of leading institutes,

from which the best were selected. The first day was a fabulous display of all the participants,

coming from all parts of the country and immensely talented, coming under one roof as a part of

the Summer School on Robotics.

The school kick started with an inauguration function, which

was presided over by Prof. Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT-

Allahabad; Prof. Dilip Kumar Pratihar, IIT Kharagpur; Prof. G.

C. Nandi, Chairperson, Summer School; and Dr. Pavan

Chakraborty, Coordinator, Summer School. The enthusiasm of

the participants was as high as that of the delegates. In his

introductory speech, Prof. Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT-A

expressed that he is happy and proud that IIIT Allahabad is

hosting the very first summer school of the series of summer

schools being held under the Science and Engineering Research

Inauguration Ceremony


Board of the DST. He hoped that the series of summer schools act as stepping stones to enable

the participants to excel in the domain.

Prof. G. C. Nandi welcomed the participants and spoke about the background of the school and

its core focus on high quality proposal writing besides robotics, which makes the school very

different from all others. Researchers need to write funding proposals in order to get the

government departments and ministries fund their research. He spoke about how robotics was

stated in IIIT-Allahabad and the group advanced to be one of the best nationally, making it the

choice of hosting the first school of the series. He expressed that following the steps of IIIT

Allahabad, every participant should work for production of quality laboratories at their institute

and work for quality research funding proposals.

The inaugural lecture of the school was given by Prof. G. C.

Nandi, Chairperson of the summer school and an eminent

personality in robotics in India, who gave an introductory

lecture on robotics. Prof. Nandi's talk covered the basic

founding principles and primitives of robotics and went on to

cover the various active areas of research and application. In an

hour's lecture Prof. Nandi very beautifully combined the basics

with the state-of-the-art research, and gave a good starting point

to the participants to help them gain the maximum from the

other speakers presenting at the rest of the school.

From the introductory lecture, the school progressed towards a display of sophisticated things the

robots are capable of doing, and highlighting the underlying technology. Prof. Dilip Kumar

Pratihar, IIT Kharagpur, presented a lecture on ‘Role of Soft Computing Techniques to Design

and Develop Intelligent Robots.’ Soft Computing, termed as an advanced form of Artificial

Intelligence suited to real world problems, is a core technology behind modern day robots, giving

them the ‘intelligence’ to perform everyday tasks. Prof. Pratihar very nicely started with the

foundations of the technology and went forward with using that technology for solving key

research problems in robotics.

The school is aimed at proposal writing, wherein the

participants are fully equipped with the skills needed for

writing a research funding proposal. The day progressed with

an excellent workshop from Prof. G. C. Nandi, chairperson of

the summer school on proposal writing. Apart from

explaining the procedure, formats, requirements and

explaining the importance of novelty in proposal writing,

Prof. Nandi very nicely expressed the dos and don'ts of the

game, the best practices and techniques, and some tricks. It is

evident that he used all his rich experience in completion of numerous key projects and also his

vital experience in judging numerous projects as a reviewer and a board member of the

Department of Science and Technology. The participants were delighted to see someone from

Inaugural Lecture by Prof. G. C.

Nandi, IIIT Allahabad

Participants at the school


the expert committee of the Department of Science and Technology, himself teaching the art of

proposal to the young and enthusiastic participants.

Moving on the more practical side, next the students were

greeted with a visit to the robotics laboratory of the institute

and a showcase of the robotics infrastructure it possesses.

The Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

(ROBITA) of the institute is one of the leading robotics

laboratories of the country which hosts a sophisticated

infrastructure for teaching and research. Prof. G. C. Nandi,

head of the laboratory, took immense please and pride in

showcasing the key equipment and facilities. Onto the display

were the Humanoid robot HOAP2, Programmable Logic

Controller besides other robots at the institute. Prominent on display was the flagship robot

designed and developed at the laboratory, SMART, which is a humanoid robot with 2

manipulator arms, differential wheel drive robot base and a pretty smart look! The SMART robot

itself introduced the laboratory to the participants in its own style and flare. The demonstration

was headed by Prof. G. C. Nandi and Dr. Pavan Chakraborty, with the enthusiastic student group

comprising of Prakhar Mohan, Anant Raj and Deep Chakraborty.

The day progressed with a laboratory session by Dr. Raul Kala. Dr. Kala's laboratory session was

on robot motion planning. He first explained the basics of the domain along with the various

techniques to solve the problem. The participants were then given a simulation setup to play

around by themselves. The participants took pleasure in playing around with the different

techniques and with different settings, in each case seeing the robots perform some navigation

action, while also practically learning the pros and cons of the different techniques.

The first day of the school had everything: from theory to practical, from introduction to state-of-

the-art, from proposal writing to technical jargons. After a heavy dose, the participants were

greeted with a spectacular cultural evening, wherein the students of IIIT Allahabad showcased

that they are not only pro in robotics, but their body is equally talented to dance on musical

notes, play rare musical instruments or hypnotize the participants with their melodious voice.

Day 2: The Summer School Intensifies with

Heavy Expert Lectures

The summer school was planned to be a heavy, but beautiful dose for the participants who

themselves are already experts of the field. The aim was to make them capable of writing

funding proposals in robotics and successfully implementing the same, which is no easy task

even for the participants of such caliber. While the first day covered a diverse set of activities

and talks, day 2 started with a sightseeing tour to the various places at Allahabad, the prominent

of which was, with no surprise, a boat trip to Sangam. The participants joined this optional

Lecture by Prof. D. K.

Pratihar, IIT Kharagpur


activity with full enthusiasm, waking up 4 in the morning after a heavy dose of lecture and lab

sessions on the prior day.

The technical program started with a talk on underwater

robotics by Prof. Ashokan Thodiyath from IIT Madras.

Underwater robotics; wherein the robots are sent under water

(oceans) to carry inspections, cleaning tasks or similar tasks; is

a unique and challenging domain. Prof. Thodiyath very nicely

illustrated the challenging issues of the domain in contrast to

the ones already existent in the land vehicles taken on day 1 of

the school. He went on to showcase means to design, control

and navigate different types of underground vehicles. Being a completely new domain, the

participants actively interacted with him

Next on the list of expert talks was Prof. G. C. Nandi, chairperson of the school and also an

authoritarian in the domain of Humanoid robotics, wherein the robots imitate humans. The talk

was entitled ‘Locomotion Control for Biped Humanoids’. In other words the talk covered the art

and techniques of making humanoid robots move, with their hands and legs like humans. It takes

months to a year for an infant to learn walking, which showcases how difficult the job is. Making

humanoids move is an even more challenging task. Prof. Nandi highlighted the different

challenges while showcasing technologies and methods to solve them, towards designing a

system that actually makes a humanoid robot move. The talk progressed with a presentation of

the flagship product, designed, developed and fabricated at IIIT Allahabad, Adaptive Modular

Active Leg. The participants were shun with displays of a disabled person walk with a single leg,

the other leg being robotic developed by a team led by Prof. G. C. Nandi and Dr. Pavan

Chakraborty.

IIIT Allahabad has been known to be well knit between

different academic institutes, industry and other bodies. And a

perfect display of this was found at this school, which featured

a workshop taken by KUKA Robotics. The participants were

greeted with stunning displays of their robot manipulator arm

AGILUS. Simply stated, it is a sophisticated robot arm that

can do nearly everything you could do with your arm, and at

spectacular speeds and of course, amazing prices. The

participants were also shown their flagship robot, especially designed for research and

academics, youbot. The stunning looking robot comprises of a mobile base and a manipulator

arm. Simply said, it is an arm that can ‘move’ and ‘get’ a pen for you. While the participants

were amazed to see a real robot live in action performing amazing things, while also noting the

base technologies, KUKA Robotics had more to offer. They explained the different kinds of

robots used in the industry, the state of robotics in India and Asia, and generally worldwide, and

their future works. They further held the audience on their seats with spectacular videos of

different robots in action. While the participants were delighted to see some robots live in action,

the industrial perspective showcased some future promising technologies that the participants

would love to get their hands on.

Prof. Ashokan Thodiyath after

delivering his lecture

Workshop by KUKA Robotics


The day progressed with a lab session by Dr. Rahul Kala, who continued on Robotic Path

Planning. Dr. Kala specifically explained reactive planning techniques, wherein the robot's

motion is much like the reflex action of humans. The participants also tried the techniques on

their own in the lab session.

Day 3: A Comprehensive display of Robotics

Research at IIIT Allahabad

The week long first summer school on robotics progressed to the 3rd

day. It is notable in the

school that speakers start with basic concepts and challenges in robotics and then advance to

showcase state-of-the-art methods and techniques, enabling the participants to quickly grasp the

latest trends and core areas of research. It is also notable how the curriculum design covers the

breadth of the topics across different application areas, and depth of the core research techniques.

The 3rd

day had much more in stock with new ideas, new areas and new technologies.

The day started with a lecture from Prof. Subir Kumar Saha

from IIT Delhi, a renowned person in robotics who has been

the backbone of robotics at IIT Delhi. Prof. Saha

demonstrated his pioneering software RoboAnalyzer which

enables students learn those hard, scary and mathematics

savvy topics in robotics using this motivating software. Prof.

Saha set the tempo up at the very start of his lecture with

fascinating display of amazing things robots doing at the

mechatronics labs of IIT Delhi. The core part of his lecture

was on working with robotic manipulators, or simply put understand the ‘intelligent’ movement

of the robot’s arms and wrists. With his humorous and entertaining content delivery style, he was

the best choice for an early morning lecture.

The long and entertaining lecture was followed by another

fantastic lecture by Dr. Amar Banerjee from Bhabha Atomic

Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. Dr. Banerjee’s talk was

on telepresence or the technology wherein you may see and

feel the presence of your dearest aunt with her miles away

from you. Dr. Barnejee gave a very conceptual and

application-oriented talk showing the fascinating future

wherein you can have the presence of everything you desire in

a virtual but real-looking setup, while the real physical world

may be devoid of everything like that. Dr. Banerjee primarily focused on robotic manipulators,

or robot arms. Already seen some similar robotic devices on the prior day, Prof. Banerjee’s

lecture just made it very clear how to use them for some amazing tasks.

Lecture by Prof. Subir K. Saha,

IIT Delhi

Lecture by Dr. Amar Banerjee,

BARC


The session was followed by a poster presentation presided

by Prof. Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT Allahabad and Prof.

G. C. Nandi, chairperson of the school. Expert talks by

leading people from the academia and industry are effective

ways to percolate deep inside the minds of the participants,

but students have their own mysterious tactics to convey

challenging and complicated theories and applications with a

few wise words and innocent gestures. In order to enable the

participants quickly get a gist and further delve into core depths of the projects of interest

undergoing at IIIT Allahabad, the students were asked to present their work as posters. It was a

great way of promoting interaction between the expert participants and speakers of the summer

school with the students of IIIT Allahabad. The students had prepared for the posters weeks

before the start of the summer school and had gone through one stage of review and selection,

the best posters were presented at the session. Anup Nandy, a doctorate student at the institute

presented a poster entitled ‘An efficacy on Development of Human Gait Biometric System for

Personal Identification’, or simply put making the CC-TV camera outside your door identify the

guests coming at your house simply by the way they walk. Similarly Varun Kumar, a masters

student, presented a poster entitled ‘Static Hand Gesture Recognition using Deep Learning’ or

simply put how you could control your computer by a series of hand movements from a distance.

The participants were also given a sneak-peek of the laboratory demonstrations, including live

working robots and other intelligent systems, developed at the Robotics and Artificial

Intelligence Laboratory of IIIT Allahabad. Day 2 ended with a movie night to help the

participants relax from the heavy schedule, but there was some robotics there as well!

Day 4: Live Demonstration of Robotics

Research at the summer school

IIIT Allahabad started the journey to train the participants, who are leading researchers and

faculties at different institutes, for writing funding proposals in robotics. Halfway into the course,

the participants had already been through much lectures, lab sessions and activities into various

conceptual, application or specialized areas of robotics. The school marked a transformation

from the lectures and foundation principles covered in the earlier days, into more practical and

application oriented areas including a live demonstration of projects held at IIIT Allahabad,

wherein the participants could try out a few of these technologies.

The day started with a lecture from Prof. Sudipto Mukherjee from IIT Delhi. Prof. Mukherjee,

who is seen as a leading researcher of the domain with numerous inventions and patents to his

credit, engaged the participants in a talk for haptics, or the ability to control a distant placed

robotic arm using your own arm. The key issue is to feel the same pressure and pain of the

objects hitting the robot arm, on the actual human arm. Prof. Mukherjee very nicely explained

the issues and tactics. He further went to the topic of grasping, or using a robot hand to pick up

Poster Presentation


an item of interest. He introduced the different challenges

of grasping in general, and further specialized to the topic

of grasping with 3 robotic fingers. While the beautiful

looking laboratory setup at IIT Delhi that Prof. Mukherjee

showcased with photographs was inspiring, the

participants were given enough motivation to pursue

research in the domain with financial assistance of the

SERB under the DST, Government of India.

The day progressed with another exciting talk by Prof.

Ashokan Thodiyath from IIT Madras who took a lecture

on the use of robotics in healthcare. Prof. Thodiyath explained numerous applications, associated

issues and research challenges. One of the fascinating topics touched by him was robotic surgery

wherein the surgeon sits on a machine working with small different robotic arms available at the

machine, while the patient lies on the operation table with large robotic arms machines imitating

the movements made by the surgeon on the machine. While the possibilities led the participants

stunned, the associated challenges motivated them to do research in the same area.

The session was followed by a lab demonstration. Prof. G. C. Nandi, chairperson of the school,

formally opened the session proudly highlighting the quality work done at his robotics

laboratory. The participants were then divided into groups and assigned to different student

groups, moved between the student groups in a round robin manner. Each student group had a

live project demonstration along with explanation of the same, starting from the basic principles

of robotics and theories; to how do they use the same for building robotics application and

research projects. While the participants loved putting their hands on the latest robotic

technologies and see them in action, they gained further by drilling the students with some

simple, some practical and some challenging questions on their work. And most of them gained

by relating the theoretical lectures taken by the experts into the practical work demonstrated.

Avinash Kumar Singh, a PhD research scholar at the

laboratory, presented the technology to get 3-D data

from two cameras. He explained the theory in depth

before giving in some nice visuals. Similarly, Safeer

Afaque, who is building an autonomous car which will

drive on its own around the campus of IIIT Allahabad,

took deep pleasure in presenting the technology with

some initial results. Neha Singh and Ashna Sharma

mesmerized the participants with their technology,

wherein you could speak on a microphone and have a

robot on screen do what you say. They also showcased how that could be come by visual

cameras.

Also popular into display was the work of Neha Joshi and Kumar Saurav showcasing how you

could control a motor wirelessly from a distance. Vijay Bhaskar and Ashutosh Katiyar

showcased their work on gait or walking, wherein participants could walk and get their walking

data recorded by a special suit designed at the laboratory, which the students could use for

Participants attentive at different

sessions

Prof. G. C. Nandi showing the

robotics lab


assessment. The walking was showcased using simulations. Manish Raj and Arpit Bansal went

to explain the non-linear dynamics, an otherwise hard to study topic, using their favorite software

while Sainul Islam and Ankit Sharma talked about the Robot Operating System. Meanwhile you

could get your favorite figure drawn on a drawing board by a robot arm through the project of

Anil Kumar.

Day 5: Industry Showers its Expertise in the

Summer School

The participants of the school had already been exposed to talks from leading experts, lab

demonstrations and lab sessions, apart from some special workshops including one on proposal

writing. The school today marked a big move with the industry expert talks taking over from the

academic expert talks, or the subjective knowledge of academia was today to be tuned with the

equipment and hands-on centric industrial session.

The day started with an opening lecture from Dr. M.

Santhakumar from IIT Indore who took a lecture on

underwater manipulation system, or having robots go under

your water tank and carry some maintenance operation. The

talk highlighted a number of issues including the

importance and techniques to make the robot vehicle stable

underwater against the water currents. The talk extended to

the mechanism to work with and control the arm of the

robot to perform the action of choice. Dr. Santhakumar also

explained in detail the underwater vehicle with the manipulation arm that they are making at IIT

Indore and how the group aims to proceed with research using the simple but unique design. He

progressed to robotic car parking system and the challenges therein.

Next to come was the industrial giant National Instruments,

whose instruments are to be found in all major laboratories

worldwide. Delegates of National Instruments came to the

campus to give a greater insight of its products, enable get

more from them, and suggest some of their products for

specialized research for the participants. The company had a

big agenda which they delivered beautifully at the session

including LabVIEW their major product, methods to have

their equipment simulated on some software and later

transfer the same techniques to actual hardware and graphics programming in the setup. The

company also took MyRIO in the session which is a robotics starter kit by them. The kit was

demonstrated in detail with explanation on working with it and using it to solve problems of core

research.

Dr. Santhakumar after his lecture

Workshop by National Instruments


After the fruitful and insightful session of National

Instruments, the day progressed with a demonstration and

presentation of the JACO robotic arm from KINOVA

robotics, taken by its sole Indian supplier Nugenix. The

JACO is a beautiful arm whose movements could have you

mesmerized in the same way as a classical Indian dancer.

The large numbers of motors at the arm allow it to twist

and turn at remarkable angles, leaving beautiful movements

for the audience to witness, and what is hard to believe is that it is a robotic arm which is

machine controlled. The arm can be used for providing assistance to the disabled, wherein the

disabled can be trained to control the arm by thoughts or more simply by a joystick. Nugenix

also explained in detail the various application areas for which their robotic arm is being used,

while some of them were already taken up in detail by the various academic presenters of the

school.

Day 5 of the week long school ended with pulling the participants to a greater level, not only by

quality expert talks, but also by exposing them to an industrial interface. It is ascertained that all

this would go a long way with not only equipping them with enough skills, but also motivating

them for quality proposal writing.

Day 6: Heavy Discussions and Interactions at

the last days of the Summer School

The purpose of the week long summer school in robotics was to train the participants with

relevant skills for writing proposals under the funding scheme of the SERB. The participants so

far have been bombarded with numerous fundamentals, theories and applications from the

academic experts coming from different IITs and other institutes of national importance. They

have also been exposed to numerous lab sessions and exposure from the industry. The school

matured to the 2nd

last day of the week today, and the schedule was very carefully crafted to fit in

relevant activities in the multi-dimensional activity approach of the school. Today was about

fewer lectures and more discussions, lesser theories and more practical; and already given heavy

doses of theories, today was to let the drugs have their effect under the stimulation of practice,

discussions and interaction.

The day started with an industrial talk from AMIMOV

Robotics, who explained in detail about the different robots

in the market, in what contexts the products are used, the

different applications to the products and a live

demonstration of some of their products. The talk covered a

variety of mobile bases or the robotic vehicles, robotic arms,

robotic hands or palms and fingers, humanoids, robotic

pretty looking faces, a virtual reality chair amongst others,

JACO Arm presented by NUGENIX

Presentation by ASIMOV Robotics


and a little robotic puppy to top it all. One of their key products was ISRA, a complete humanoid

approximately of the size of a human with everything that you could ask for. One of the key

issues expressed right at the start of the summer school was the need to indigenously design and

manufacture low cost robots, without having to import them from the other countries. ASIMOV

Robotics expressed their contribution to the call with their Indian designed and manufactured

products.

The day progressed with a panel discussion, wherein the

participants were allowed and encouraged to ask any

question arising from the mind-opening summer school or

otherwise in general in robotics, to a panel comprising of

in-house robotics faculty of the institute and other experts

of the school. The panel was headed by Prof. G. C. Nandi,

the chairperson of the school and also an eminent

personality with a wealth of experience in robotics. The

panelists included Prof. T. V. Sreenivas, IISc Bangalore;

Dr. Pavan Chakraborty, IIIT Allahabad; Dr. M.

Santhakumar, IIT Indore; Dr. Satish Kumar Singh, IIIT

Allahabad; and Dr. Rahul Kala, IIIT Allahabad. The

participants took pleasure in asking numerous questions

which spanned from the most basic covering the design and

operation of the robots, to the most abstract covering the

future of robots. The questions fired key issues which the

panelists loved to discuss within themselves as well the participants. The panel discussion further

led to clarity over the expectations of the participants from the school and in general their

robotics research aims and aspirations.

Next was a lab session taken by Dr. Rahul Kala, a robotics faculty at the institute, who continued

his series of experiments over the problem of robot path planning. Inspired by the progress and

enthusiasm of the participants on the previous experiments, Dr. Kala set the level up by asking

the participants to code an advanced version of one of the techniques taken up earlier. In depth

discussions were made and a starter code was provided. The numerous hours of lab into the

problem of robot motion planning, formed a strong basis of the next academic talk by Dr. Kala

on the same problem. In his talk, Dr. Kala narrated the state-of-the-art research in the domain,

and how easily the simple-looking lab assignments could be converted into advanced forms

using relevant simulation software if necessary.

Day 7: The Summer School comes to an end

with heavy expectations

The first summer school on robotics finally concluded, after numerous lectures, lab sessions,

demonstrations, special workshops, industrial interactions and chance to play with real robots.

Panel Discussion


The participants had to go through approximately 45 hours of lectures (excluding breaks). This

included 9 academic speakers coming from institutes including IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIT

Madras, IIT Indore, BARC and IIIT Allahabad. Also there was a special workshop on proposal

writing, sessions and demonstrations by 4 industries, demonstration of 12 live projects and 12

posters, 4 hours of lab assignments, and a panel discussion; besides a couple of sightseeing tours

and daily cultural events.

The summer school was concluded by a valedictory

ceremony, certifying the participants for the hard work and

long sessions that they have been through in the summer

school, and all that amidst the harsh Allahabad weather.

The valedictory ceremony was presided by Prof. Shantanu

Chaudhury, IIT Delhi; Prof. Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT

Allahabad; Prof. G. C. Nandi, Chairperson of the summer

school; and Dr. Satish K. Singh, Coordinator of the

Summer School. Addressing the participants, Prof.

Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT Allahabad, expressed that

the ceremony acts as convocation and urged the participants to feel as a part of the institute. He

stated that the participants should take forward the ideas gathered at the institute and go forth

with replicating the same at their institutes. He also stressed that effectiveness of the summer

school would be judged by what the participants put in based on the ideas of the workshop.

Speaking to the participants, Prof. Shantanu Chaudhury from IIT Delhi stated that the summer

school was a great initiative to re-tangle robotics research across the country. He further

explained the ideologies and activities of the Robotics Society of India and urged the participants

to join and contribute to the same.

Also to address the gathering was Prof. G. C. Nandi,

chairperson of the summer school, who very clearly stated

that ‘it is time for me to stop speaking and for you to act’.

Prof. Nandi re-stressed that robotics, specially humanoid

and social robotics, are the thrust areas for the Department

of Science and Technology which would attract a lot of

funding. He stated that effectiveness of the school would

be purely judged by the participant’s action and he

foresaw 20 specialized labs should come up across the

country, inspired by the school. He also said that projects, quality students and quality research

are a cyclic process leading to maturity. He quoted ‘there is a difference between all other wealth

and knowledge as a wealth’ which adds by giving. Dr. Satish K. Singh, presented the vote of

thanks, specially thanking the participants for coming from long geographical distances across

the country and actively participating at the school.

Earlier the day started with a morning lecture by Prof. Shantanu Chaudhury from IIT Delhi, an

eminent personality in robotic vision, which was also the title of his talk. Prof. Chaudhury started

with primitive applications in robotic vision and used it as a base to explain the underlying

concepts and theories. In a 2.5 hour talk Prof. Chaudhury left the audience with all concepts and

applications covered in detail, including visual servoing (or having a robot follow you), picking

Prof. Somnath Biswas addressing at

the valedictory ceremony

Distribution of certificates


and placing objects using vision, navigation using vision and above all Robot Soccer, wherein a

bunch of robots play soccer. Prof. Chaudhury’s talk was a perfect closing lecture for the week

long summer school as it very nicely put all the problems, topics and application areas covered in

the school into perspectives, giving a simple and overall solution to the problem of moving and

manipulating a complex robotic machine autonomously without the intervention of a human.

The school was by all means a big success which could be

easily seen by the delight of the participants, especially

when accepting their certificates. The participants of the

school left Allahabad soon after, going to their place of

work. Regular academics and research resumed at the

robotics laboratory of IIIT Allahabad. While the school

ended on a high note, it would be interesting to see to what

magnitude the message of IIIT Allahabad percolates far and

wide across the country, resulting in state-of-the art labs,

proposals, projects and students in robotics.

And so it all ends

Lecture by Prof. Shantanu

Chaudhury, IIT Delhi


Photo Gallery

Behind the Scenes

The Robots

The Moments


Photo Gallery

The Workshop Classroom

The Participants

The Lecture Classroom


Feedback Form Analysis

Note:

Questions where the participants were unanimously in agreement of a good organizational aspect

are suppressed.

Sex Ratio: 25:2 (from 27)

Age: Average: 31, Median: 30 (from 26)

1. What was the prime reason for you to attend

this summer school (circle one)? (some had

multiple answers)

2. How many other schools/workshops have

you attended in the last 5 years (circle one)?

(from 27)

3. To what extent do you feel you have the

expertise in writing funding proposals (circle

one)? (from 29)

4. Do you think the schedule was too heavy

for the school (circle one)? (from 28)

23%

47%

13%

17%

0% 0% Renowned resource

persons

Wanted to learn

robotics

Wanted to learn

proposal writing

Wanted to boost

professional career

Allahabad is a great

city

Others (please

specify)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

This

was my

first

1 2-3 4-5 More

than 5

0%

21%

34%31%

14%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

1 (can't

write)

2 3 4 5 (very

confident)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1 (No, we had

a lot of free

time, could

have learnt

more)

2 3 (Just right) 4 5 (Yes, it was

very tiring)


5. Do you think one week duration was enough

for the school (circle one)? (from 28)

6. Would you have loved more companies

and robots (circle one)? (from 29)

7. Did you attend the sightseeing tour? (from 24)

8. If offered, which of the following post-school

services would you like to have (circle)? (from

29)

9. How do you rate the hospitality during the

event (circle one)? (from 29)

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

1 (It could

have been

easily shortened)

2 3 (Just

right)

4 5 (It should

have been

longer)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

1 (no, there

were already

too many)

2 3 (Just right) 4 5 (Yes, more

industry

presentations)

Yes

71%

No

29%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Help during

writing of

funding

proposal

Review of

proposal

written by

you

Help in

selecting

research

topic for

funding

Research

guidance on

the topics

taken at the

school

Networking Others

(specify)0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1 (poor) 2 3 4 5 (very

good)


Quotes from Some Selected Participants

Sai Gunaranjan Pelluri, Sarath S. M.,

IISc Bangalore IIITM Kerla

Sheikh Nasrullah, S. K. Dhinesh,

Central University of Kashmir BITS Anna University

Akshay Nagarajan, S. K. Dhinesh

Amrita University BITS Anna University

The summer school, I must say, was

organized in a very professional

manual. Even though I am a M. Sc

(Engg.) student, I thoroughly

enjoyed all the lectures. The

hospitality shown here has been

phenomenal. At the end I would like

to say that I enjoyed every bit of my

stay here at IIITA

SSR-2014 has been a knowledge

enriching learning experience. Through

I am novice to robotics, the sessions

gave the right exposure to start learning

robotics. The overall experience here

has been wonderful and I take this

opportunity to thank all the organizers

of SSR-2014

School was very good got. A lot

to learn in some of research

problems on computer science

area of robotics. Hospitality

was fantastic.

Well organized and

planned. I like this school.

It helped me to understand

basic things.

The summer school has offered me

with a wonderful opportunity to

learn from experts in the domain,

network and form ideas and interest

based on the various perspectives

shed on various topics on robotics.

Well organized and

planned. I like this

school. It helped me

to understand basic

things.


Quotes from Some Selected Participants

Anuj Mahajan,

Mata Vaishnav University

Oishee Mazumder,

Bengal Engineering College

Ranjith R., Ajay Kaul,

Amrita University Mata Vaishnav University

As expected from IIIT-A SERB summer school on robotics was a very satisfying experience.

We at SMVDU Katra are anticipating a robotics lab in the next UC plan and this workshop

has provided us with the necessary background to make a good proposal for the lab.

Kinematics, dynamics and microcontroller portions were all covered well, coupled with

valuable industry interaction. I am expecting more of coding the AI portion in the next

summer school. Thanks to Prof. G. C. Nandi, Prof. Pawan Chakraborty, Dr. Rahul Kala

and the students for organizing such an excellent learning platform coupled with decent

boarding facility, sangam trips, cultural programs and movies.

My experience in IIIT A for attending the summer school on robotics was quite enriching

overall course material, hospitality and the city ambiance was very pleasant and worth the

stay. I have definitely learnt something from interaction and participation. However, if the

course duration was shortened, I think it would have funned better.

a) As a beginner in the field of robotics I

had the chance to understand the required

basics. Had quality lectures by rightly

qualified professors. b) Got the exposure of

the subject carried at IIITA and the

participation of the companies. c) I thank

Prof. G.C. Nandi and SERB for such an

initiative.

The summer school was

organized properly and

the delivery of the

contents was excellent.


Outcomes

As beautifully spoken by Prof. Somnath Biswas, Director, IIIT Allahabad and Prof. G. C. Nandi,

chairperson of the summer school, the success of the school can be best judged by the actions of

the participants after the school. The participants have very strongly spoken about the school

through the feedback form or otherwise. It would be interesting to see the outcome in the future

from that perspective.

Based on our interpretation, the following are the outcomes of the summer school:

Creation of manpower: As indicated by the participants through feedback forms and

otherwise, it is clear that each of the participants is now a better researcher and a more

enlightened personnel. The summer school has played a vital role in advancing the

participants in their careers by a careful selection of talks and resource persons.

Proposals: The aim of the summer school was to increase the quality and quantity of

proposals submitted to the SERB and it is evident from the summer school that numerous

participants are now looking forward to submit proposals, which should be reflected in

the submission metrics of SERB in the future. It is even more important to note that

having all the required information about funding agencies and their processes, the

participants have taken a big leap towards the art of proposal writing. This has directed

their research towards this new angle, and the participants should soon be moving to

pursue research in alignment with SERB funding priorities.

Labs: A number of participants attended the summer school in order to gain knowledge

for opening up of robotics and related labs at their parent institutes. The summer school

further emphasized on the same. Looking at the state-of-the-art facilities at IIIT

Allahabad and attending demonstrations of the projects ongoing at the lab, the

participants gained not only the technical details, but also motivation to open similar labs.

Networking: The school has played an important role in networking in-between the

participants and between the participants and resource persons. Networking is known to

play a vital role in research and the participants shall definitely benefit from the same. As

requested by the participants, a Facebook group has already been floated in this regard.

Industry Interface: The summer school invited a number of key companies. The

companies took presentations about robotics from their industrial perspective and the

various robots, software and hardware tools. Networking with these industries may prove

instrumental in creation of labs, directing research ideas, getting an insight to what's

already available and what needs to be done.

And above all Motivation, a lot of it.


Conclusions and Recommendations

The summer school has largely benefitted the participants, who to re-stress, came from institutes

of national importance and wide geographical locations. The objectives, clearly laid down before

the start of the school, can be seen to be clearly achieved with great success. The school has not

only given an insight into the various research challenges and areas of work in robotics, it has

also enabled them to understand the basic technology from a greater perspective and get a

practical insight into the problems. Further, the stress on proposal writing as a formal workshop,

as well as through repeated instructions at the workshop has played a major role in orienting the

participants and encouraging them for proposal writing.

Based on the experience of the summer school, it is recommended that such schools be organized

in large numbers, thereby benefitting more participants. The research scholars particularly

showed active interest for the school, despite being non-funded for the school. Considering the

excitement, some of them had to be accepted for participation. A larger number of funded seats

for research scholars from leading Government institutes is recommendable.

A problem faced at the summer school was the interdisciplinary nature of robotics, thereby

incorporating participants from multiple domains and with multiple expectations. The future

versions of the summer school may well focus upon a particular specialized segment of robotics,

rather than attempting a school on the entire domain. This would also help in reducing the

duration of the school, which some participants have stated.

While this summer school showed both the robot hardware, and the techniques to work over with

the same hardware, thus aiming that the participants get a good insight into the whole concept.

Feedbacks indicate that they instead want to play and program the hardware themselves, and

simulation setups are not very acceptable. The future versions of the school need to aim at such

workshops, including having relevant hardware/robots in sufficient numbers for the participants

to play around.

Date5 AM

onwards

08:00-08:30

AM

08:30-09:30

AM9:30-11:00 AM

11:15 AM - 12:45

PM2:15-3:45 PM

3:45-4:00

PM

4:00-4:30

PM4:30-4:45 PM 4:45-5:30 PM 5:30-7:00 PM 7:30-9:30 PM

Saturday, June 07, 2014

Inauguration &

Introduction to Robotics

by G. C. Nandi, IIIT-A

(α)

D. K. Pratihar,

IIT Kharagpur (α)

D. K. Pratihar,

IIT Kharagpur (α)Tea (α)

IIIT-A Lab

R. Kala (ρ)Cultural program (μ)

Sunday, June 08, 2014Sightseeing

(β)

A. Thodiyath,

IIT Madras (α)

G. C. Nandi,

IIIT Allahabad (α)KUKA-Robotics (ρ) Tea (ρ)

Monday, June 09, 2014 S. K. Saha,

IIT Delhi (α)

S. K. Saha,

IIT Delhi (α)Movie Night (μ)

Tuesday, June 10, 2014S. Mukherjee,

IIT Delhi (α)

A. Thodiyath,

IIT Madras (α)

S. Mukherjee,

IIT Delhi (α)Tea (ρ)

Evening Sangam Visit,

Shopping (β)

Wednesday, June 11, 2014M. Santhakumar,

IIT Indore (α)

M. Santhakumar,

IIT Indore (α)

Tea (ρ)

4:30-4:45 PMMovie Night (μ)

Thursday, June 12, 2014ASIMOV Robotics

(ρ)

Tea

(ρ)Panel Discussion (ρ)

IIIT-A Lab,

R. Kala (ρ)Tea (ρ)

R. Kala,

IIIT Allahabad (ρ)Event Banquet (β)

Friday, June 13, 2014Tea

(α)

Validictory &

Certificate

Distribution (α)

Legends

Academic Sessions Venues

Industrial Sessions (α) Auditorium, Administration Block

Participative Sessions (ρ) Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory/Class Room, Computer Centre -1

Ceremonial (μ) Central Auditorium

Informal and Cultural (β) Bus available outside the visitor hostel

Free (ν) Visitor Hostel-1

Nugenix (ρ)

IIIT-A Lab,

R. Kala (ρ)

S. Chaudhury,

IIT Delhi (α)

SERB Sponsored Summer School on Robotics

Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad

June 7-13, 2014

Schedule

Tea

(α

)

11

:00

to

11

:15

AM

Lu

nch

(ν)

12

:45

-2:1

5 P

M

Registration (α)Proposal Writing,

G. C. Nandi, IIIT-A (α)

KUKA-Robotics (ρ)

A. Banerji,

BARC (α)

IIIT-A Lab Demonstrations (ρ)

National Instruments (ρ)

IIIT-A Research in Robotics,

Poster Presentation with Director's High Tea (ρ)

SUMMER SCHOOL On

ROBOTICS (7-13 June 2014)

Sponsored by

Science and Engineering

Research Board

of Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India

Organized by

Indian Institute of Information

Technology, Allahabad (A centre of Excellence in IT)

About IIIT Allahabad IIIT-A was established in 1999, as a center of excel-lence in Information Technology and allied areas by MHRD, Govt. Of India. The institute was conferred "Deemed University" status by Govt. of India in the year 2000 and declared as an Institute of National importance. The institute is located on a campus at Jhalwa, Allahabad. The IIIT-A Jhalwa campus is well equipped with all infrastructural and modern research facilitates. The Institute is running UG, PG and PhD programs in thrust areas of Information Technology and related fields. The emphasis of these programs is the development of cutting edge technologies, R&D capabilities and igniting innova-tions in the students and working professionals to enable the country to emerge as leading player in the global arena.

Robotics & AI Laboratory Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (ROBITA) Lab at IIIT-A strives to advance education, innovation and research in the latest core areas of robotics, including manipulation, locomotion, control and vision based robotics, and the related research areas including ma-chine learning, computer vision, and graphics. Presently the ROBITA is engaged in multiple domains of robotics involving Anthropomorphic GAIT genera-tion by bipedal robots, Mobile robot navigation and planning, Force control of legged vehicles, Robot Vi-sion, Gesture based communications, Temporal Pat-tern Mining and knowledge discovery in Humanoid robot . The lab is well equipped with state of the art robot platforms and advanced sensors along with Fujitsu’s HOAP-2, which has capabilities to successfully per-form the tasks like walking on flat terrain, performing sumo movements, cleaning a whiteboard, following a ball, grasping thin objects like pens or brushes. RO-BITA has recently developed a technology for Adap-tive Modular Active Leg (AMAL), which is controlled by Biologically Inspired Central Pattern Generator (CPG).

Eligibility Faculty from leading national educational institutes like IIT, IIIT, NIT, and other Govt. Univer-sity/Institute/R&D laboratories and having the primary knowledge of Robotics are eligible to apply for the course (30 Seats). In addition, 5 seats each are allocated to the faculties/professionals of private universities/institutes and industry. After review of application and detail infor-mation, final short listing will be done on the basis of academic/industrial and research credentials of the appli-cant. Total 40 candidates will be shortlisted for the course. Therefore a CV along with the publication list be submitted in ‘PDF’ format either by uploading to the summer school website or e-mailing to [email protected]. Short listed candidates will be announced on the website. Shortlisted candidates will have to submit the registration fee by 20th May 2014 otherwise candidates from the waiting list will be called for joining the course.

Course Fee The registration fee for the candidates from Govt. Insti-tutes/Universities/R&D laboratories will be Nil, whereas Rs. 5000/-Only will be charged as seat booking fee, which will be returned along with the TA reimbursement (Maximum 2-AC train fare from the shortest route) after successful completion of the course. The registration fee for candidates from other universities/institutes and in-dustries will be Rs. 15,000/- and Rs. 20,000/- respectively. The registration fee includes the registration, course ma-terial and full boarding and lodging for entire duration of summer school. The accommodation will be provided to the participants only, in the institute guest house on twin sharing basis on first come first serve basis based on avail-ability.

Payment The entire course fee should be paid in advance through the demand-draft / bank-transfer / net-banking. The de-mand-draft should be in favour of “Deputy Registrar (A), IIIT-A” and payable at Allahabad. Bank details: SBI Jhalwa, Allahaabd (A/C: 30996838478; IFSC Code: SBIN0010891; MICR: 211002057). An advance scanned copy of the duly completed application form along with the fee receipt / scan copy of DD should be uploaded before 20th May 2014.

Introduction Robotics and automation go hand in hand. Robotics focuses on systems incorporating sensors and actua-tors that operate autonomously or semi-autonomously in cooperation with humans. Robotics research em-phasizes intelligence and adaptability to work in un-structured environments, while, automation research emphasizes efficiency, productivity, quality, and reli-ability, focusing on systems that operate autono-mously, often in structured environments over ex-tended periods, and on the explicit structuring of such environments. Artificial Intelligence is the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines. Artificial Intelligence research addresses tasks ranging from our sensory interactions with the world (vision, speech, locomotion) to the cognitive (analysis, game playing, problem solving). Today, robotics is a rapidly grow-ing field, as technological advances continue, re-search, design, and building new robots serve various practical purposes in diversified areas of interest like,

• Agriculture • Environment • Medical and Health Care • Space research • Military and border security • Safety and Security • Biomedical and Rehabilitation • Manufacturing and Automation

Course Contents The summer school is broadly targeting the following topics,

• Rehabilitation and Assistive Robotics • Humanoid Robotics • Computer and Robot Vision • Robot Motion Control • Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Vehicles • Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics • Bio Robotics

Committee Chairperson: Prof. G. C. Nandi (Director In-Charge, IIIT Allahabad) Advisory & Technical Program Committee

Dr. Prabir K. Pal, Scientist, BARC Dr. Anil Parab, VP, L&T

Prof. Ashish Dutta, IIT Kanpur Prof. Ashokan Thodiyath, IIT Chennai Prof. Ashitava Ghosal, IISc Bangalore Prof. Dilip K. Pratihar, IIT Kharagpur Prof. S. Saha, IIT Delhi Shri Sanjay Barman, CAIR Bagalore

Dr. M. Santhakumar, IIT Indore Dr. Alok Mukherjee, R&D Eng. Pune Prof. Debjani Mitra, ISM Dhanbad Prof. Amit Konar, Jadavpur University Shri S. Ramakrishnan, VSSC Trivadrum

School Coordinators:

Dr. Pavan Chakraborty, IIIT Allahaabd Dr. Satish Kumar Singh, IIIT Allahabad Dr. Rahul Kala, IIIT Allahabad Dr. Vrijendra Singh, IIIT Allahaabd Important Deadlines:

Submission of Application: May 15, 2014 Short listing of candidates: May 17, 2014 Registration & Fee Payments: May 20, 2014 Start of the school: June 07, 2014

Postal Address Prof. G. C. Nandi

“SERB SUMMER SCHOOL ON ROBOTICS” Indian Institute of Information Technology

Allahabad-211012 (U.P.)-INDIA http://ssr.iiita.ac.in, www.gcnandi.co.nr

Email: [email protected], [email protected] Phone:(+91)-532-2922025, 2922000

Fax: (+91)-532-2430006

Registration Form

SUMMER SCHOOL On ROBOTICS (7-13 June 2014)

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G. C. Nandi

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,

Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad

Devghat, Jhalwa, Allahabad, UP-211012, INDIA

http://robita.iiita.ac.in/

Documents

7-13 June, 2014 - Science and Engineering Research …serb.gov.in/pdfs/Publications/Kulkarni Report ssr.report...First SERB Summer School on Robotics 7-13 June, 2014 School Report