October 2020 – The KGP Chronicle

Stepping up Industry 4.0 Manufacturing

Novel Industry 4.0 Technology Jointly Developed by IIT Kharagpur and TCS to Set New Trends in India’s Advanced Manufacturing Sector

In an industrial collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services, IIT Kharagpur has developed novel Industry 4.0 technology for remotely controlled factory operations and real-time quality correction during industrial production.

At this time of pandemic when staffing has restrictions due to hygiene and social distancing norms, cloud infrastructure, remote and real-time operations systems hold the key to maintain effective industrial operations. But the benefits of controlled operations have a bigger impact especially in the context of Atma Nirbhar Bharat in delivering quality output at low costs. The present innovation upgraded the industrial process of friction stir welding to a multi-sensory system of Industry 4.0. It has not only set the course for remotely controlled operations in the Indian industrial sector but has enabled real-time quality check and correction during the production process. This will make it possible for industrial houses to achieve standardized quality goals throughout the production process and reduce rejection hence lowering the cost of production.

Emphasizing on the need for such technologies to achieve the ‘Make in India’ goal, Director Prof. Virendra K Tewari remarked, “While we are aiming to boost indigenous production and exports, our primary goal should be quality output with minimum disruptions. Be it, consumers, in India or abroad, these are two basic needs our industrial sector must address for procuring orders in large volumes. At IIT Kharagpur’s Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, we have set our target to bring to the forefront indigenously developed industry 4.0 technologies to support our industrial sector to achieve this goal.”

The innovative technology developed by Prof. Surjya K Pal, professor in-charge at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology in association with TCS will acquire real-time information about the welding process through multiple sensors and enable online control of weld quality by means of cloud-based communication with the friction stir welding machine.

“Welding is at the heart of any industrial operations. If we can improve the weld quality in real-time during batch production we can reduce rejections in post-production sample checks,” opined Prof. Pal.

Explaining the new technology, he said, “Our multiple sensor process involves various signal processing and machine learning techniques to predict the ultimate tensile strength of the weld joint is fabricated. This technology is connected with a vast experimental knowledge base to conform to a standard system and prediction of the weld joint strength. Any defect identified during the monitoring procedure is corrected in real-time by sending modified parameters to the machine thus ensuring the standardized quality of the process.”

The concept of this technology can further be evolved for real-time control of other industrial processes and such work will be carried at the Centre with other industrial partners soon, Prof. Pal confirmed. The data from multiple sensors further improves the accuracy of the industrial production process, he affirmed. The technology has been jointly patented by IIT Kharagpur and TCS. The innovation has also been reported in the CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2020.03.004]. This project was funded by the Department of Heavy Industry, Govt. of India and TCS.

Industry partner TCS views such innovation as an enabler of technology-based transformations in the country, especially in overcoming challenges called out by the pandemic.

“The remote friction stir welding machine quality control via multi-sensor fusion developed by Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is a case in point,” said K Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

“The Embedded Systems & Robotics, IoT and ICME platform teams from TCS Research and Innovation are working closely with IIT Kharagpur’s CoE towards AI-driven prediction/control of weld strength using a scalable and robust platform. Academic partnerships are an important part of TCS Research and TCS CoInnovation Network (TCS CoIN) in creating real-world solutions with scientific rigour,” he added.

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology was set up through the support of the Department of Heavy Industry of the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, along with a consortium of top six industry members with the aim to stimulate the innovation in advanced manufacturing for boosting the capital goods sector. Tata Consultancy Services is a key industry partner at the Centre.

Talking about Centre of Excellence, Director, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. V K Tewari said, “This is the way forward, not only in the new normal situation due to the pandemic but with the increasing adoption of automation, digitization, IoT and Cyber-physical Systems applications in the industrial sector as part of Industry 4.0. Our Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology with its industry collaborations has immense scope in facilitating this transition not only through innovations but also upskilling the workforce for using such technologies and innovative processes. You will witness the germination of a new industrial culture from centres such as ours towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Cite Paper: Mishra D., Pal S.K., et al. Real time monitoring and control of friction stir welding process using multiple sensors, CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, Volume 30, August 2020, Pages 1-11, doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2020.03.004

Project Contact: Prof. Surjya K Pal, E: skpal@mech.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

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ICMR Certifies IIT Kharagpur’s COVID19 Testing Technology

IIT Kharagpur’s COVIRAP – Novel Technology of COVID-19 Test Gets ICMR Certification

This new testing method implements a highly reliable & accurate molecular diagnostic procedure, conducted in an ultra-low-cost portable device unit & costs only around Rs. 500 per test.

‘COVIRAP,’ the diagnostic machine developed by IIT Kharagpur researchers, has been successfully validated for its efficacy in COVID-19 detection by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Various commercial units have already approached the Institute for technology licensing to enable a rapid reach of this innovation to the common people.

After rigorous testing with patient samples by an authorized ICMR laboratory, adhering to their strict guidelines, ICMR has now granted certification for this COVID-19 Diagnostic Test. This test has been designed to be fairly easy to conduct and affordable as well and can produce results in a custom-developed mobile phone application within one hour.

Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Hon’ble Minister of Education, Government of India, said, “I am glad the researchers from IIT Kharagpur have achieved the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat through this medical technology innovation. I congratulate Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, and the research team led by Prof. Suman Chakraborty and Dr. Arindam Mondal for this path-breaking innovation taking molecular diagnostics from high-end labs to the field.”

This new testing method implements a highly reliable and accurate molecular diagnostic procedure that can be conducted in an ultra-low-cost portable device unit developed by the research team of IIT Kharagpur, The test results are rendered via a custom-made mobile application for dissemination without requiring manual interpretation.

Speaking about this test, Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “This is indeed one of the greatest contributions in the history of medical science, particularly in the area of virology, and is well set to create a whole new avenue of test protocols to a large extent.”

This innovation has made high-quality and accurate COVID testing affordable for the common people with a testing cost of around ₹ 500/- which can further be reduced through government intervention. As informed by IIT Kharagpur, this machine can be developed at a cost of less than ₹ 10,000/- with minimal infrastructural requirement making the technology affordable to common people. The testing process in this new machine is completed within one hour.

Dr. Shanta Dutta, Director of ICMR-NICED said, “While overseeing the testing and validation, I was very impressed with the portable low-cost machine unit that can truly be a game-changer for COVID-19 diagnostics at peripheral laboratories with the support of unskilled human resources as operators. This now needs a rapid commercial scale-up to cater to the needs of the underserved population. ICMR-NICED will be pleased to facilitate support for further improvisations in the method towards even superior performance.”

Further, this would go on impacting the lives of many in rural India as the device is portable and can be operated on a very low energy supply. Minimally trained rural youth can operate this device.

“Today, it is COVID-19; yesterday, it was leprosy and tuberculosis; tomorrow, it will be something else. This technology is all set to create a revolution in rapid and low-cost detection of all these, by bringing high-end molecular diagnostics from the lab to the field. The impact of this, therefore, is long-lasting, empowered by the capability of detecting unforeseen pandemics in the coming years that may potentially endanger human lives time and again”, remarked Prof. Suman Chakraborty.

Subsequent financial support to this project was provided by the IIT Foundation, USA, to meet the various expenses in the clinical testing phase. Partial financial support has also been provided from the Common Research and Technology Development Hub on Affordable Healthcare, established by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India, at IIT Kharagpur.

Elaborating on the validation process of ‘COVIRAP’ Diagnostic Test, Dr. Mamta Chawla Sarkar, an Internationally acclaimed virologist who oversaw the patient trials on behalf of ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) said, “A detailed scrutiny of the testing results has clearly shown that this assay holds the capability of detecting extremely low levels of viral loads that any other method based on similar principles of testing, even those from the most celebrated research groups across the world, could not come up with so far. In practice, this means that very early stages of infection can be detected, thereby isolating the patient and arresting the uncontrolled spread of infection in the community via asymptomatic patients.”

ICMR-NICED has further certified the test to be extremely user-friendly. Notably, the number of tests per one-hour batch in a single machine unit can be further increased to much higher limits, for the purpose of testing on a mass scale.

The novel diagnostic platform, led by Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, and Dr. Arindam Mondal, Assistant Professor, School of Bio-Science, IIT Kharagpur, has been designed and fabricated by doctoral student Mr. Sujay Kumar Biswas, and the bio-analytical protocol has been standardized by doctoral students Mr. Saptarshi Banerjee and Ms. Nandita Kedia. Dr. Aditya Bandopahyay has further helped in developing the thermal unit. The device has been subjected to rigorous testing protocols as per ICMR guidelines, at ICMR-NICED, an Institute authorized by ICMR. The tests conducted there have revealed that the results from this new assay are of standards comparable to the celebrated RT-PCR tests, with a remarkably high level of specificity and sensitivity, the two common parameters used as indicators of efficacy of any diagnostic test.

Dr. Arindam Mondal, Assistant Professor, School of Biosciences, IIT Kharagpur, said, “During the testing phase of patient samples, all kits, exclusively developed at IIT Kharagpur, were transported in an uncontrolled environment for hours to the testing unit, which shows high levels of stability of the reagents that are being used for the testing.”

The project received financial support from the Institute in late April 2020 as Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, decided to establish a dedicated fund to support COVID-19 related research and product development as per an initiative by the Ministry of Education, Government. of India following the vision of Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank Hon’ble Minister of Education, Government of India.

Speaking about the commercialization of ‘COVIRAP,’ Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “While the Institute can produce the testing kit up to a certain scale, patent licensing will facilitate commercialization opportunities for medical technology companies. Any corporate or start-up can approach the Institute for technology licensing and commercial scale of production. The Institute is open to tie-ups, with due measures of protecting the interest of public health amidst the pandemic situation.”

Project Contact: Prof. Suman Chakraborty, suman@mech.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact: Ms. Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

More Towards Global Living Experience

Hon’ble Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ Inaugurates International Faculty Visitors’ Accommodation at IIT Kharagpur

“I am sure IIT Kharagpur will take the Indian education standards to a new unparalleled level:” Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank, Hon’ble Education Minister

In an initiative towards attracting more faculty from prestigious foreign universities, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has constructed new International Faculty Visitors’ Accommodation. The Institute is looking forward to hosting nearly 100 international faculty members for short-term and long-term teaching besides for Research and Development.

A video of the new facilities that were inaugurated can be downloaded from the following link – https://fromsmash.com/IIT-Kharagpur-Fuction-Video

Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank,’ Hon’ble Minister of Education, Government of India, inaugurated the new International Visitors’ Accommodation at a virtual event on Thursday (15th October 2020) in the presence of Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Hon’ble Minister of State for Education, Government of India, Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, and other faculty and staff from the Institute. Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ also laid the foundation stones for two new halls of residence for students during the occasion.

Addressing the inauguration function, Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank,’ Hon’ble Minister of Education, Government of India, said, “I would like to ask the students to progress keeping a strong vision and make it their mission to achieve their goals. We are prominently becoming a global education hub and the National Education Policy 2020 is making sure the academicians will study in India and stay in India. Soon, India will teach the world; and the world will come to India to learn.”

Further, Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said, “With the strong foundation pillars of Quality, Quantity and Access, National Education Policy 2020 is inclusive and will help education reach international standards. I am sure IIT Kharagpur will take the Indian education standards to a new unparalleled level. On this occasion, I congratulate Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, and his team at IIT Kharagpur and Shri Sanjay Dhotre. Naming the new infrastructure facilities after Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Shri. Atal Bihar Vajpayee, Bharat Ratna awardees and the legendary Smt. Savitri Phule will inspire students for sure to become leaders.” He laid particular emphasis on the importance of physical infrastructure to achieve our goals of excellence in the global scenario.

The A.P.J. Abdul Kalam International Visitors Residential Complex features fully-furnished studio apartments with modern amenities intended for full-time and part-time international faculty. Apart from 12 regular international faculty, the Institute also hosts international faculty from other foreign universities during the year for short-term courses under Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN), Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) and other programs of the Ministry of Education and Government of India. The Institute also hosts faculty for long-term programs as well. Close to 50 such faculty visited in 2019-2020.

Speaking earlier, Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Hon’ble Minister of State for Education, Government of India, said, “I congratulate IIT Kharagpur on unveiling the news infrastructure facilities. The Institute houses many world-class facilities and I am sure the Institute will be creating a new cutting-edge road map through the National Supercomputing Mission. I am happy about the unveiling of these new residence facilities. Naming the hostels on these eminent personalities will surely inspire the students.” He further emphasized the need for excelling in domain-specific studies and expressed his confidence that every IIT would select a few domains where they can become global leaders.

Foreign Faculty bring in many advantages and unique benefits to the Institute. Some of the key benefits for IIT Kharagpur Faculty and students include:

Multi-institutional Academic and Research exposure
Cross-cultural experience and increase in diversity
International faculty drive the global consciousness at educational institutions. They not only contribute to academia but bring internationalization to the industry by means of developing Intellectual Property
International faculty spearhead the overall globalization of institutes by attracting more international students, collaborations and branding, besides leading the institutes further towards excellence.

Speaking on this occasion, Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “I am happy to announce today (15th October 2020) the unveiling of three new infrastructure facilities at IIT Kharagpur. The Institute already has 23 halls of residence named after luminaries. Along with this, we are naming the new boys’ residence of the hall after Shri Atal Bihar Vajpayee and girls’ residence of the hall after Smt. Savitri Phule.”

Further, Prof. V.K. Tewari said, “The Institute is working progressively on the lines of new National Education Policy 2020. The Institute has constituted a task force of 23 faculty members who are making sure that the policy is implemented in the best way possible at IIT Kharagpur. The Institute has also worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 times. Our faculty and researchers developed a rapid portable diagnostic test, painless drug delivery needle, and a physical distancing device, among other innovations and research.”

During this event, foundation stones were laid for two new students Halls of Residence having a capacity of 500 each. IIT Kharagpur already has 23 hostels with a combined capacity of 13,000. These new G+7 facilities will have central airconditioning, a food court and modern firefighting system along with elevators and ramps.

Student strength growth (as of 14.10.2020)

	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
UG	7034	6988	5780 +1556 (expected from JEE Advanced)
PG	2573	2558	2885
RS	3164	3278	3705
TOTAL	12771	12824	13926

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ABOUT IIT KHARAGPUR

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur, IIT KGP) is the first IIT and an Institute of National Importance set up in 1951 under a parliamentary act of the Govt. of India. It has also been awarded the status of the Institute of Eminence by the Govt. of India 2019. IIT Kharagpur is known for its wide and diverse academic disciplines (19 departments, 13 schools, 17 centres and 25+ R&D units), and a range of UG, PG and Doctoral programs in areas including Engineering & Technology, Basic Sciences, Biosciences, Earth Sciences, Medical Science & Technology, Social Sciences and Humanities, Management, Law and Entrepreneurship. Currently, the Institute has close to 13000 students and more than 750 faculty members. The Institute has a very high research focus with an annual research output of 2000 publications with 40000 citations, 50-100 patents, and 30 technology incubations as startups.

The Institute conducts several joint degree programs with Indian and foreign institutions with students from over 15 countries enrolled with the Institute as full-time or short-term foreign students. Each year more than 2500 students graduate from IIT Kharagpur who are rated highly employable in the industry. The alumni include stalwarts who have excelled as industry leaders, award-winning academicians, politicians and public figures, sports personalities and even creative professionals. The Institute has been ranked among the top 5 in the NIRF rank for Engineering, Management, Law and Overall and the best in the country in Architecture. Apart from academics and research, IIT Kharagpur has made a considerable impact in community outreach through its socially relevant projects in areas of Education, Malnutrition, Water and Sanitation, Energy and Environment, Affordable Healthcare, Rural Livelihood and much more.

For more information visit: iitkgp.ac.in. More News: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

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FOR MEDIA QUERIES, PLEASE CONTACT

Shreyoshi Ghosh, Executive Officer (Media & Communication), IIT Kharagpur, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in, M: +91 8145736048

IIT Kharagpur Researchers Develop Industry-grade Silica from Rice Biomass

Rice husk is one of the most widely available agricultural wastes. The process of disposal of rice husks looks more crucial as burning the material each year during the winters has been creating a severe environmental challenge. While the husk is often used to meet energy requirements for rice milling, this process produces an enormous amount of ash (approx. 20%) which is a hazardous material to the environment. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have devised an economic and eco-friendly way to dispose of this biowaste.

A team of researchers from IIT Kharagpur’s Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering have developed a chemical treatment which can separate the silica content in the husk ash residue which is about 90 – 95% and neutralize the remaining biomass for disposal in water bodies.

“The silica extracted on purification has the potential of commercial grade silica which can further be used for production of metallurgical and solar grade silicon, confirmed the researchers,” said lead researcher Prof. A K Datta.

Four different alkalis, namely, KOH, K2CO3, NaOH, and Na2CO3, and two different solvents, namely, water and alcohol (ethanol) were selected to accomplish the extraction process. The physical and chemical characterizations of the extracted silica were evaluated using a field-emission scanning electron microscope attached with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer, and atomic absorption spectrophotometer.

To make the process eco-friendly and pollution-free, the rice husk ash was initially dispersed into the water and then Na2CO3 was added to it. As a result, carbonic acid was produced instead of CO2, which is harmless for the environment.

“The results of the study suggested that the morphological, microstructural and compositional characteristics of the extracted silica nanoparticles (SiO2-NPs) are at par with the market available silica” explained Prof. Datta.

The researchers have conducted a cost analysis of the treatment of silica samples to compare the costs with market grade silica. The result of the study suggested that the silica nanoparticle obtained from rice husk ash can be a suitable low cost precursor for Magnesium silicide.

Research Paper Citation:

Nayak, P., Datta, A. Synthesis of SiO₂-Nanoparticles from Rice Husk Ash and its Comparison with Commercial Amorphous Silica through Material Characterization. Silicon (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-020-00509-y

Contact:

Project: Prof. A K Datta, Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Email: akd@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, Executive Officer (Media & Communication), E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

About Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, IIT Kharagpur

The Agricultural and Food Engineering Department is unique of its kind in the IIT system focusing on agricultural research and food and nutritional security. The department comprises six disciplines such as Farm Machinery and Power, Land and Water Resources Engineering, Agricultural Biotechnology, Food Process Engineering, Agricultural Systems Management and Aquacultural Engineering, respectively. The major domain of research and development includes Precision agriculture, biofuel and bioenergy, modern food processing, plasticulture and micro-irrigation, Climate Change, hydrological modeling, groundwater management, water management, agricultural biotechnology, pollution abatement, extrusion technology, intelligent and high pressure packaging, soil mapping and image analysis for plant phenotyping. Research projects include Integrated Rainwater Management, Soil Tillage, Utilisation of Fly ash, Ergonomic Database for Agricultural Equipment, Integrating Remote Sensing Data with Distributed Hydrological Models, Model Pilot Plant and koji room facilities for production of industrial enzymes etc. The department has high-throughput equipment, NABL accredited Analytical Food Testing laboratory, Advanced Laboratories in varied domains. The department has filed several patent applications and transferred many technologies to the industries and various stake-holders based on its innovative research.

Contact Head of the Dept.

Prof. Rintu Banerjee

Phone: +91-3222-282244; Email : head@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

International Webinar on India the Global Destination for Higher Education, post-NEP 2020

IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation India, October 10, 2020, IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation (India) in partnership with IIT Kharagpur organized an International Webinar on ‘India: The Global Destination for Higher Education: Post NEP 2020 Scenario’. Spread over the two days on October 9 and 10, 2020, eminent experts from Indian and global academia deliberated on policy recommendations for the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India, towards the internationalization of Indian higher educational institutions in the light of the New Education Policy 2020.

The mood was set by Prof. V K Tewari Director, IIT Kharagpur and the patron of the webinar and Commander V K Jaitly, Chairman of the webinar. Cdr Jaitly reminded the audience how the recommendations forwarded in the first edition of this initiative in 2017 were incorporated in NEP 2020. He pointed out how Indian students are spending about $16 Bn abroad every year and most of them land up in average universities. They spend 10 to 20 times more in comparison to the ‘value for money’ of the education they can get in India. If the quality of Higher Education in India is enhanced along with the packaging and branding of our educational programs to international students, our country can earn about $20 Bn every year.

Prof. Tewari expressed his views about measuring the contributions of IITs over the decades in the light of the continuing exodus of young Indian talents abroad and product development with global market potential. He believes NEP 2020 has brought the opportunity to finally promote internationalization both inbound and outbound, through semester away and credit transfer programs. He welcomed the concept of a multi-education research university floated under NEP 2020 which will have a long-term impact on the reputation of institutions such as IIT Kharagpur.

Views by Education Minister

Hon’ble Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ who was the Chief Guest talked about how NEP 2020 is in sync with global education programs including a credit bank system enabling students to take a break while pursuing their academic programs and awarding certificates, diplomas and degrees. Thus international students will not feel burdened with long-term commitment. He expressed concern over the outflow of billions of dollars every year for foreign education despite the strong higher education system and research facilities in the country especially now with the announcement of NEP 2020 and the proposed National Research Foundation. The recent approach by the Govt. of India inviting foreign universities to open campuses in India and Indian universities to set up foreign campuses might address the challenge. He asserted that the various digital platforms developed under various educational initiatives of Govt. of India since 2014 would help strengthen the internationalization prospects of the country’s higher education system along with outreach programs. He gave the mantra of ‘Stay in India’ and ‘Study in India’.

Online and Short-term Programs

The panelists including Secretary, Dept. of Higher Education Shri Amit Khare contemplated increasing the reach to foreign students under NEP 2020 through online education such as SWAYAM. He also weighed on leveraging the researchers’ network of GIAN and SPARC programs and creating short-term courses for one or two semesters under NEP 2020, in addition, to extensively covering social aspects of cyber-physical research. This idea was further supported by Prof. R T Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore who observed that foreign students often opt for short-term courses instead of long commitments due to the uncertain factor of the cost of education. Prof Sandeep Sancheti, VC, SRM University, however, leaned towards a Masters program which he believes can bring international recognition. Prof. M K Surappa, VC, Anna University talked about the contribution of engineering colleges other than IITs both private, central government and those with state universities. Chairman, AICTE Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe talked about creating a silo of the Indian knowledge system, which has been emphasized under NEP2020, catering to the interests of foreign students.

Funding & Publicity

Revisiting the admission system to Indian universities and funding mechanisms were also discussed. While Prof. Sudhir Jain, Director, IIT Gandhinagar remarked on publicizing funding schemes through webinars and promotional activities by Indian foreign offices, Prof Souvik Bhattacharyya, VC, BITS Pilani opined on the need for a contemporary and youthful approach in the funding and communication programs and improve the perception by engaging existing foreign students as brand ambassadors. Prof. Geeta Mehta from Columbia University and President, Asia Initiatives pointed out the lack of brand awareness about IITs abroad among the general public despite the reputation in the corporate sector. Prof S Vaidhyasubramanium, VC, Sastra Deemed University talked about looking for opportunities in the neighbourhood of SAARC, while Dr R Gopal, Director, Member, Board of Management, DY Patil School of Management (Deemed to be University) emphasized on the importance of the consortium approach for marketing the Indian universities abroad.

Admissions

The issue of bottlenecks in the admission of foreign students was raised by Prof. Pramod K Jain, Director, IIT (BHU) Varanasi who advocated the need for making the admission process and other regulations lucid for the foreign students. The possibility of globalizing NTA and other admission programs was also discussed. US Consul General from Kolkata Ms. Patti Hoffman reflected on the role of international offices at individual institutions to provide the core support system along with exploring collaborative opportunities through designing customized joint programs under NEP 2020.

Infrastructure

A key area that was discussed across all the panels was infrastructural development catering to the living experience and overall campus life of the international students. Prof. Souvik Bhattacharyya, VC, BITS Pilani, called it a deal-breaker and stressed on the need for alternate methods to procure funds for infrastructural development.

International Presence

Another area that found repeated mention was the creating international presence of Indian higher educational institutions through setting up outreach centres working in close association with the foreign offices of the Govt. of India. Prof. Pradeep Khosla, Chancellor at the University of California San Diego noted how US universities have addressed this in UAE. This idea found further support among academic experts from the USA with Prof. Prabhat Hajela, Provost, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute extending the idea to conducting outreach initiatives addressing safety and infrastructural issues by means of induction programs to improve the perception of Indian institutions and foreign students enrollment.

Employment Opportunities through Startup Incubation

The concern of return on investment was expressed by Prof. T G Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati who mulled on making internships and employment opportunities available to foreign students. This thought found a distant answer in the deliberations of Prof Prith Banerjee who stated how the students from universities such as Stanford contemplate having their startups than joining corporate jobs and the role the universities play in grooming the students for entrepreneurship.

Action Plan

Commander VK Jaitly, the Webinar Chair stressed the need for setting up a Task Force at the National level and its cells in all the HEIs engaged in the objective of attracting foreign students for higher studies in different schemes. The HEIs should set their goals and the Task Force can play a supporting role in achieving those goals through appropriate funding, creating consortiums and conducting outreach programs.

The sessions were coordinated by Prof Sukumar Rangachari, academician and entrepreneur, Shri Rajah Venkatraman, Webinar Convenor, Ron (Ranbir) Gupta, President, IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA and Varadarajan Seshamani, President, IIT Kharagpur Foundation India as session coordinator.

The webinar was co-sponsored by IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA, PanIIT USA and PanIIT India.

Media Coverage:

Times of India (Special Feature)	Live Mint (Special Feature)	Business Standard
Economic Times	Hindustan Times	Financial Express
The Week	Outlook	Deccan Herald
Yahoo News	Odisha TV	The Hindu
New India Express	PTC News TV	Republic World
The Hindu (Tamil)	NDTV	First Post
ABP Live	Hitavada	Inshorts
Times of India (PTI)	India Today

Media Contact:

Cdr. V K Jaitly, M: +91 9811 777 904; Shreyoshi Ghosh, M: +91 8145 736 048

IIT KGP Develops Agro-Robotic Solution for Plant Disease Management

IIT Kharagpur Develops Robotic Solution for Plant Disease Identification and Pesticide Use

India is moving at an accelerated pace towards digitization automation. The farm sector which employs about 58% of India’s workforce and contributes to about 14% of the current GDP, has adopted technological advancement to warrant uniform progress. However, farm mechanization in India still has less than 50% penetration. The Govt of India has been taking several measures and a significant drive towards this end is the multi-body project “Development of autonomous multipurpose agricultural robotic platform” funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and run by C-DAC Kolkata as the nodal implementing institute along with IIT Kharagpur, BAU Ranchi and KCT Coimbatore. Under this project, IIT Kharagpur has designed a robotic system capable of identifying the plant diseases (say vegetables, maize etc.) through the camera-captured image analysis and spraying the appropriate pesticide, as the situation demands.

The robotic system is a tracked mobile manipulator that aims to achieve the conflicting objectives of increased productivity, improved quality. This robotic system consists of (i) a tracked vehicle suitable for negotiating rough terrain field, (ii) a serial manipulator mounted on the tracked vehicle capable of holding the camera and pesticide spraying nozzle, (iii) a pesticide spraying module, and (iv) camera-based vision module.

Prof. D K Pratihar, from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering who is leading this innovative project said, “Our device can detect the plant diseases using camera and image analysis thus model the uncertainty associated with the human vision system and consequently remove it. This will help the farmers to detect the disease(s) correctly. Further use of such a device instead of manual operation of spraying pesticide will protect the farmers from related probable health hazards.”

The device has been fabricated by Sun Fab Industries Pvt. Limited, Mumbai (in collaboration with TECHNIDO).

“The serial manipulator will have sufficient dexterous workspace making it capable of spraying the pesticides from the top, bottom and various sides of the plant, which may be difficult to achieve utilizing the widely used drones,” said Prof. Alok Kanti Deb from the Dept of Electrical Engineering.

The developed robotic system is battery-driven one and once it is fully charged, it will be able to perform its duty in the field for about two hours. The robot will be operated remotely using buttons placed on a control panel and thus, a specialist technician may not be required for operating the robot in the field.

“We will soon resume the final assembly of the robotic system and field testing as we are recovering from the present COVID-situation. We have further plans in the future to make this robot autonomous and intelligent,” confirmed Prof. Pratihar.

The Government of India is giving a major boost to innovative rural livelihood technologies. In May 2020, the Finance Ministry had announced an economic stimulus of ₹1.5 trillion to boost agricultural infrastructure and logistics.

Talking about the potential of such technologies Director, Prof. V K Tewari, who himself is an expert in farm machinery design and precision agriculture said, “If we are looking at a comprehensive development towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, the strategic importance of such technology development is profound. Most importantly such technologies need to be taken from the lab to the land.”

Media Coverage:

Hindustan Times	News18	Careers 360
Dainik Jagran	NDTV Khabar	Millennium Post
The Week	Outlook	ABP Education
Zee Business

Project Contact: Prof. D K Pratihar, dkpra@mech.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; M: +91 8145 736 048

For News Visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook: @IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

IIT KGP Develops Telemedicine Homecare Technology

IIT Kharagpur Rolls Out Telemedicine Technology for Home Care during COVID Physical Distancing Protocol

It has been more than half the year since the world has been struggling through the challenge thrown by COVID-19. With the passage of time, and vaccines still not being on the cards, the pressure on the healthcare system is only expected to rise while the healthcare workers continue to remain vulnerable to infection. To address this issue, researchers at IIT Kharagpur’s Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering have developed a telemedicine system, iMediX.

The system integrates homecare with healthcare services from the hospital. Considering the emergent needs due to COVID-19 Pandemic, the system facilitates critical health care support to patients at their doorsteps through remote consultation by a physician. The system is accessible by any standard internet browser and also from a mobile device.

In this system, a patient signs up to get an account by providing her Email ID or Mobile number. Then the patient can make a request for consultation by choosing a Department of the hospital, entering her chief complaints and uploading necessary scanned medical records. The hospital administration processes the request and assigns a doctor. The doctor after logging in sets an appointment date and time for the patient and the system communicates the information to the patient by Email and SMS. On the day of the visit, the doctor consults the patient using video conferencing and advises her by writing a prescription, which is sent by Email to the patient. The patient can also download the prescription from her account.

Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, the lead researcher remarked, “As the number of cases of home isolation and home quarantine are increasing, the system will cater to the needs of the present situation. It would be useful also to follow up and treat aged patients.”

iMediX is being adopted for public use right at its home, IIT Kharagpur on-campus healthcare system.

Director, Prof. V K Tewari stated, “In April we had announced eight R&D projects for providing COVID healthcare services. This telemedicine project was key among them especially keeping in mind its effectiveness in our own community. When our campus will start operating in full strength close to 30000 people including students would be in need of healthcare services and this technology will reduce over-exposure of the healthcare staff while efficiently catering to the population. While we are promoting physical distancing, it seems only appropriate to introduce this digital platform to meet the healthcare needs of the campus community effectively. We are creating user accounts for our medical cardholders who can avail the consultation facility home through video conferencing.”

The software was launched on October 2, 2020, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and will be integrated at the Dr. B. C. Roy Technology Hospital of the Institute which provides emergency healthcare services for the campus residents and employees, confirmed the office of Principal Medical Officer Dr. Samir Dasgupta.

Deputy Director, Prof. S K Bhattacharyya remarked, “I am extremely happy that we are able to launch the telemedicine facility at BCRTH as this was one of our dream projects. Since we have a large number of OPD patients, it will be extremely beneficial to them as movement to the hospital is extremely difficult for them. Also, for our students the waiting time at the hospital will get reduced as this will be very helpful to them.”

Director Tewari further shared his plan to expand the use of this technology to people outside the campus through the upcoming superspeciality hospital of IIT Kharagpur. The researchers are already in touch with healthcare MSMEs for commercialization of the copyrighted version of the technology. A base model was installed at Swasthya Bhawan, Govt. of West Bengal on a trial basis. Field trials are also underway for the base model in Bangladesh.

Media Coverage:

DataQuest	Economic Times	InShorts
BioSpectrum	Dainik Jagran	ET HealthWorld
Dinamani	NDTV	Sangbad Pratidin
Outlook	ET Telecom	CNBC TV18
Yahoo News	Deccan Herald

Project Contact:

Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, jay@cse.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact:

Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

For news about IIT Kharagpur visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in

IIT KGP Setting India’s VAIBHAV Roadmap

IIT Kharagpur to lead High-Performance Computing, Internet of Things, Agro Economy and Food Security at Govt. of India’s VAIBHAV Summit.

Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit, a global summit of overseas and resident Indian scientists and academicians are being organized by the various science & technology and academic organizations under the Govt. of India. The Summit, which will be launched by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi on October 2, 2020, (0630 PM IST), aims to enable deliberations on thought processes, practices and R&D culture with a problem-solving approach for well-defined objectives. IIT Kharagpur has been selected to champion the verticals of ‘Communication Technology’ and ‘Computational Sciences’ both pertaining to the domain of Electrical Sciences and ‘Agro Economy and Food Security’.

Under the first two verticals, the Institute is organizing two horizontal sessions namely

1) High-performance computing and its application and

2) Internet of Things: Integrating Sensing, Communication and Computing All Together.

The initiative will be led by Prof. Niloy Ganguly and Prof. Pralay Mitra from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering.

High-performance computing (HPC) architecture is developed through a high-speed network of multiple computer servers. Therefore, HPC, utilizing its multiple computing resources, delivers a facility to solve a variety of scientific and engineering problems that could otherwise be difficult to solve using a desktop computer. In research and development, HPC allows performing concurrent jobs in parallel to speed up the computation.

“Under this horizontal, we wish to discuss the recent developments of HPC architectures and how efficiently these can be utilized to solve the cutting-edge computational problems. In recent times HPC has enabled the development of various fields including system biology, machine learning, large-scale real-life model simulation studies and the application in turn has helped in optimizing the HPC architecture. In this session, we would like to discuss this two-way flow and the challenges which need to be tackled thereby,” explained Prof. Pralay Mitra who will be chairing the session.

The other vertical of ‘Communication Technologies’ revolves around the concept of “Connected World” which has now become a reality than a concept with millions of devices controlling our daily lives and activities. Internet of Things (IoT) is not only confined within the sensing devices anymore, rather it spans to any ubiquitous system sharing and triggering the data of the Internet and participating in intelligent control and decision-making processes. In recent times, devices have become intelligent enough to support sensing, communication as well as the processing of the information, even in a battery-less setting. Considering the widespread applications of IoT in our day to day lives, it would be interesting to explore the technology through all its verticals, starting from sensing, communication, computation along with the security of information.

“Our session on Internet of Things will specially aim at discussing the challenges pertaining to convergence of communication, computing and sensing and the possibility the technology holds in developing the Indian industry,” said Prof. Ganguly.

This session will be chaired by Prof. Sandip Chakraborty from the department.

The third vertical led by Prof. Rintu Banerjee and Prof. D. K. Swain from the Dept of Agricultural & Food Engineering will cover the horizontal segments:

Precision Agriculture: ICT and Big-Data Analytics for Empowerment of Stakeholders
Application of Nanotechnology in Food/Feed Processing and Metabolic Biology of Food

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural production and rural development in India. It enables the dissemination of the essential information to the farmers at the right time, when combined with the power of Big-Data. ICT and Big-Data Analytics have the needed potential to revolutionize the accessibility of its stakeholders to the variety of agricultural information in an effective manner. Such information-rich farmers are thus empowered to make appropriate decisions to increase their yields and reduce economic losses due to the prevailing uncertainties. Under this sub-horizontal, we wish to discuss the recent advances in machine learning, deep learning, and AI; Decision support system and modeling; E-advisories and mobile technologies; and the Traceability from farm-to-fork. The lead faculty members of IIT Kharagpur are Prof. Peeysh Soni and Prof. Rajendra Machavaram.

“In this session, we will ponder on the technological, methodological as well as logistics-related challenges in the context of Indian agriculture; while also discussing appropriate strategies to leverage from ICT and Big-Data Analytics in overcoming those challenges,” remarked Prof.Banerjee.

The researchers will also explore nanotechnology which, over the past few decades, has been recognized as an attractive and alternative technology that has brought a revolution in food research. Being the technology at the atomic scale, the pre-designed and designated molecules have created a revolution in food applications. Because of its inimitable properties, the entire performance of nanotechnology in the food sector can be broadly divided into nanostructure-food ingredients and food nanosensing. The nanostructure elements are involved in food packaging, such as anticaking, humectants, stabilizer, leaving agents etc. On the contrary, any living system upon food intake response differently because of the complex metabolic stimulation where several metabolic cascades are functioning simultaneously. Upon ingestion of bioactive molecules such as phenolics, alkaloids or other phytochemicals, these biomolecules render some extra added defense response to the body, to fight against biotic and abiotic stresses.

“After COVID 19 pandemic, it is a well-established fact that the phytochemicals are undoubtedly participating in increased body immunity and thus it is an interesting area of research to scientifically establish the role of different phytochemicals and analogous molecules on disease prevention and enhancing body immunity. Thus this area of research has been felt extremely appropriate for today’s era for considering the latest happening on food and health care sectors,” added Prof. Banerjee.

VAIBHAV SUMMIT 2020 is that platform where the expert from India and NRIs working in these areas will be participating in the discussion, where the inevitable hurdles and their concomitant solutions will be discussed. In all sessions on eighteen verticals will be presented at the summit.

Ron (Ranbir) Gupta, a US-based alumnus of IIT Kharagpur from the 1970 batch will be talking at the inaugural session on October 2. Ron will throw light at the developments in the area of agritech and other rural technologies. He will further talk about his expert area, infrastructure.

For more information visit: https://innovate.mygov.in/vaibhav-summit/#tab1

Program Details:

Date: October 4, 2020, Time: 06.30 – 09.30 PM IST

Topic: High-performance computing and its application

Vertical: Computational Sciences

Speakers:

Prof. V. Bhavsar- Univ. Of New Brunswick

Prof. Preetam Ghose- Virginia Commonwealth University

Prof. Anil Vullikanti – University of Virginia

Prof. Ananth Kalyanaraman- Washington State University

Prof. Chirag Patel – Harvard University

Prof. Debnath Pal – IISC, Bangalore

Prof. Soumyendu Raha- IISC, Bangalore

Prof. Anshumali Shrivastava- Rice University

Prof. Pramod Batotia- TU Munich

Prof. Subhajyoti De- Rutgers University

Prof. Srinivas Aluru- Georgia Institute of Technology

Prof. Pralay Mitra – IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Somnath Roy- IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Niloy Ganguly- IIT Kharagpur

Date: October 7, 2020, Time: 05.00 – 08.00 PM IST

Topic: Precision Agriculture: ICT and Big-Data Analytics for Empowerment of Stakeholders

Vertical: Agro-Economics and Food Security

Speakers:

Prof. Nitin Kumar Tripathi – AIT Bangkok, Thailand

Prof. Narendra Kumar Ahuja – Uni. Illinois, US

Dr. Manzul Kumar Hazarika – Geoinformatics Center, AIT, Thailand

Dr. Lav R. Khot – WSU, US

Dr. Sindhuja Sankaran – WSU, US

Prof. J. Adinarayana – IIT Bombay

Prof. Prabir K. Biswas – IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Mahua Bhattacharya – ABV IIITM, Gwalior

Prof. Dharmesh K. Saxena – SLIET, Longowal, Punjab

Date: October 13, 2020, Time: 06.30 – 08.30 PM IST

Topic: Internet of Things: Integrating Sensing, Communication and Computing All Together

Vertical: Communication Technologies

Speakers:

Prof. P. R. Kumar- Texas A&M University

Archan Misra – SMU

Aruna Balasubramanium- Stony Brooks

Nishanth Shastry- University of Surrey

Ranga Rao Venkatesha Prasad- Delft University

Nirupam Roy- Maryland University

Niloy Ganguly – IIT Kharagpur

Sandip Chakraborty- IIT Kharagpur

Pralay Mitra- IIT Kharagpur

Bhaskaran Raman- IIT Bombay

Dr K Mourougayene- SAMEER

Date: October 16, 2020, Time: 08.30 – 11.30 PM IST

Topic: Internet of Things: Application of Nanotechnology in Food/Feed Processing and Metabolic Biology of Food

Vertical: Agro Economics and Food Security

Speakers:

Prof. Rabibrata Mukherjee, IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Rekha S. Singhal, ICT Mumbai

Prof. Sunil Kumar Khare, IIT delhi

Prof. Vasudeva Singh, Guwahati University

Prof. Anubhab Pratap Singh, University of British Columbia, Canada

Prof. Kalidas Shetty, North Dakota State University

Prof Keshavan Niranjan, University of Reading

Prof. Arun K. Bhuni, Purdue University