CSI Communications - July 2016 issue

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CSI Communications Knowledge Digest for IT Community Volume No. 40 | Issue No. 4 | July 2016 ` 50/- ISSN 0970-647X www.csi-india.org ROBOTICS 52 pages including cover ARTICLE Artificial Intelligence – Are we digging our own Graves? 30 INNOVATIONS IN IT A Model for Determining Software Product Performance Maturity 36 COVER STORY Affordable Robotics for Innovative Education and Outreach 7 TECHNICAL TRENDS Current trends in Development of Intelligent Robotic Systems for Manufacturing 19 RESEARCH FRONT Internet Of Robotics Things (IORT) – Embedded IOT Enabled Robotics Technology 22

Transcript of CSI Communications - July 2016 issue

Page 1: CSI Communications - July 2016 issue

CSI CommunicationsKnowledge Digest for IT Community

Volume No. 40 | Issue No. 4 | July 2016 ` 50/-

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52 pages including cover

ARTICLEArtificial Intelligence – Are we digging our own Graves? 30

INNOVATIONS IN ITA Model for Determining Software Product Performance Maturity 36

COVER STORYAffordable Robotics for Innovative Education and Outreach 7

TECHNICAL TRENDSCurrent trends in Development of Intelligent Robotic Systems for Manufacturing 19

RESEARCH FRONTInternet Of Robotics Things (IORT) – Embedded IOT Enabled Robotics Technology 22

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

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Know Your CSIExecutive Committee (2016-17/18) »

PresidentDr. Anirban Basu309, Ansal Forte, 16/2A,Rupena Agrahara, BangaloreEmail : [email protected]

ChairmanMr. Ved Parkash GoelDRDO, Delhi

Region-IMr. Shiv KumarNational Informatics Centre Ministry of Comm. & IT, New Delhi Email : [email protected]

Division-I : HardwareProf. M. N. HodaDirector, BVICAM, Rohtak Road New Delhi Email : [email protected]

Region-IVMr. Hari Shankar MishraDoranda, Ranchi, Jharkhand Email : [email protected]

Division-IV : CommunicationsDr. Durgesh Kumar MishraProf. (CSE) & Director-MIC, SAITIndore Email : [email protected]

Region-VIIDr. K. GovindaVIT University, Vellore Email : [email protected]

Hon. TreasurerMr. R. K. Vyas70, Sanskrit Nagar Society,Plot No. 3, Sector -14, Rohini, Delhi Email : [email protected]

Vice-PresidentMr. Sanjay MohapatraD/204, Kanan Tower, Patia Square, Bhubaneswar Email : [email protected]

Dr. Santosh Kumar YadavNew Delhi

Region-IIMr. Devaprasanna Sinha73B, Ekdalia Road,Kolkata Email : [email protected]

Division-II : SoftwareProf. P. KalyanaramanVIT University, Vellore Email : [email protected]

Region-VMr. Raju L. KanchibhotlaShramik Nagar, Moulali,Hyderabad, IndiaEmail : [email protected]

Division-V : Education and ResearchDr. Suresh C. SatapathyANITS, VishakhapatnamEmail : [email protected]

Immd. Past PresidentProf. Bipin V. MehtaDirector, School of Computer Studies, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad Email : [email protected]

Hon. SecretaryProf. A. K. NayakIndian Institute of Business Management, Budh Marg, Patna Email : [email protected]

Mr. Sushant RathSAIL, Ranchi

Region-IIIDr. Vipin TyagiJaypee University of Engineering and Technology, Guna - MPEmail : [email protected]

Division-III : ApplicationsMr. Ravikiran MankikarJer Villa, 3rd Road, TPS 3, Santacruz (East), Mumbai Email : [email protected]

Region-VIDr. Shirish S. SaneVice-Principal, K K Wagh Institute of Engg Education & Research,Nashik,Email : [email protected]

Nomination Committee (2016-2017)

Regional Vice-Presidents

Division Chairpersons

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an individual.

2 are friends.

3 is company.

more than 3 makes a society. The arrangement of these elements makes the letter ‘C’ connoting ‘Computer Society of India’.

the space inside the letter ‘C’ connotes an arrow - the feeding-in of information or receiving information from a computer.

CSI Headquarter :Samruddhi Venture Park, Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, MIDC, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400093, Maharashtra, IndiaPhone : 91-22-29261700Fax : 91-22-28302133Email : [email protected]

CSI Education Directorate : CSI Registered Offi ce :CIT Campus, 4th Cross Road, Taramani, 302, Archana Arcade, 10-3-190,Chennai-600 113, Tamilnadu, India St. Johns Road, Phone : 91-44-22541102 Secunderabad-500025,Fax : 91-44-22541103 : 91-44-22542874 Telengana, IndiaEmail : [email protected] Phone : 91-40-27821998

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Contents

CSI COMMUNICATIONS

Please note:CSI Communications is published by Computer Society of India, a non-profit organization. Views and opinions expressed in the CSI Communications are those of individual authors, contributors and advertisers and they may differ from policies and official statements of CSI. These should not be construed as legal or professional advice. The CSI, the publisher, the editors and the contributors are not responsible for any decisions taken by readers on the basis of these views and opinions.Although every care is being taken to ensure genuineness of the writings in this publication, CSI Communications does not attest to the originality of the respective authors’ content. © 2012 CSI. All rights reserved.Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for non-commercial classroom use without fee. For any other copying, reprint or republication, permission must be obtained in writing from the Society. Copying for other than personal use or internal reference, or of articles or columns not owned by the Society without explicit permission of the Society or the copyright owner is strictly prohibited.

P L U SApplication Form for Individual / Life Membership 40

Book Review 43

Brain Teaser 44

CSI Reports 45

Student Branches News 48

Cover StoryAffordable Robotics for Innovative Education and Outreach Shunmugham R. Pandian

7

Robotics in Surgery Shruti Shashi Kumar and Ajit Joshi

12

Autonomic Unmanned Aerial Vehicles : A Computer Vision PerspectiveSiddhartha Narayana Ram Prasad Padhy, Suman Kumar Choudhury and Pankaj K. Sa

14

Technical TrendsCurrent Trends in Development of Intelligent Robotic Systems for ManufacturingSankha Deb

19

Research FrontInternet Of Robotics Things (IORT) – Embedded IOT Enabled Robotics TechnologyS. S. Aravinth, P. Sachidhanandam, R. Karthick and M. Senthilkumar

22

Energy harvesting for Micro/Nano Robots using a Micro Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Farm based on Movement of Fish in a SchoolSreekant Damodara and N. N. Sharma

26

ArticlesArtificial Intelligence – Are we digging our own Graves?Sanjay Bhatia

30

Stream Control Transmission ProtocolAnurag Jagetiya and C. RamaKrishna

33

Innovations in ITA Model for Determining Software Product Performance MaturityRajiv Thanawala, Mohan Jayaramappa and Sreejith Balakrishnan

36

Real-time Unified Process DashboardManoj Soman

38

Printed and Published by Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra on Behalf of Computer Society of India, Printed at G.P. Offset Pvt. Ltd. Unit-81, Plot-14, Marol Co-Op. Industrial Estate, off Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri (East), Mumbai 400059 and Published from Computer Society of India, Samruddhi Venture Park, Unit-3, 4th Floor, Marol Industrial Area, Andheri (East), Mumbai 400 093. Tel. : 022-2926 1700 • Fax : 022-2830 2133 • Email : [email protected] Chief Editor: Dr. A. K. Nayak

Chief EditorDR. A K NAYAK

EditorDR. VIPIN TYAGI

Published byMR. SANJAY MOHAPATRAFor Computer Society of India

Design, Print and Dispatch byGP OFFSET PVT. LTD.

VOLUME NO. 40 • ISSUE NO. 4 • JULY 2016

Page 4: CSI Communications - July 2016 issue

• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

Dr. Vipin Tyagi, Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology, Guna - MP, [email protected]

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Editorial

Dear Fellow CSI Members,

Robotics is a branch of science that combines a range of fields like Computer Science, Mechanical, Electronics, and Electrical Engineering and deals with the design, production, and operation of robots. According to Robot Institute of America, 1979, a Robot is “A re-programmable, multifunctional mechanical manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks”. By mimicking a lifelike appearance or automating movements, a robot may convey a sense of intelligence or thought of its own. The idea of a device like Robot is very old. Aristotle once wrote “If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others ... if the shuttle could weave, and the pick touch the lyre, without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not need servants”. However the word “Robot” was first used in a play about the futuristic robots, in 1921, by the Czech play writer Karel Capek, that take over the world. This term was based on the root  robota,  which means servatude or forced labor. After translation of the play in English the ‘Robot’ term was included in English language in 1923.

Today Robotics is a form of automation that is helping mankind in various ways resulting gain in productivity. Difficult, dangerous, monotonous, or tedious tasks formerly performed by humans, are now often carried by robots. Moreover, robots can be used to replace humans in dangerous situations.

Keeping in mind the importance of Robotics in today’s context, the publication committee of Computer Society of India, selected the theme of CSI Communications (The Knowledge Digest for IT Community) June 2016 issue as “Robotics”.

In this issue the first Cover Story, “Affordable Robotics for Innovative Education and Outreach” by S. R. Pandian presents an outline of the potential of affordable robots in education and community outreach using open source hardware and free software technologies, along with representative examples. Next article in this category “Robotics In Surgery” by S. S. Kumar and A. Joshi describes the use of robotics in real life application like surgery. Cover story “Autonomic Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Computer Vision Perspective” by S. Narayana, R. P. Padhy, S. K. Choudhury and P. K. Sa describes that how robots’ help increases productivity and decision making.

In Technical Trends, “Current trends in development of Intelligent Robotic Systems for Manufacturing”, S. Deb presents some of the current trends in development of intelligent robotic systems for manufacturing.

In Research Front the first article “Internet of Robotics Things (IORT) – Embedded IoT Enabled Robotics Technology” by S. S. Aravinth, P. Sachidhanandam, R. Karthick, M. Senthilkumar, gives an implementation of the valet parking system using fire bird v robot using a phased approach. In next article “Energy Harvesting for Micro/Nano Robots using a Micro Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Farm based on Movement of Fish in a School”, S. Damodara and N.N. Sharma have presented the outcome of

their research that will help in designing a scheme for propulsion of individual and swarm of micro/nano robots which are propitious to flying/swimming.

In Article category we have included “Artificial Intelligence – Are we digging our own Graves?” by S. Bhatia that gives various aspects of Artificial Intelligence. The next article “Stream Control Transmission Protocol : The Origin of Multihoming” by Anurag Jagetiya C. RamaKrishna describes stream control transmission protocol.

Innovations in IT series contains “A Model for Determining Software Product Performance Maturity” by R. Thanawala, M. Jayaramappa and S. Balakrishnan that introduces a Performance Maturity Model (PMM), that classifies software product performance into various levels. In another article “Real-time Unified Process Dashboard” M. Soma describes a tool that can help in BPS Service Provider Operation as well BPS Customer leadership team’s armor enabling better control over operations and improving chances of avoiding SLA breach and subsequent monetary penalties.

This issue also contains Crossword, Book Review, CSI activity reports from chapters, student branches and Calendar of events.

Our sincere thanks to Dr. Sankha Deb, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. N. N. Sharma, BITS Pilani, Dr. Shunmugham R. Pandian, IITDM, Chennai for accepting our request to share their expertise in Robotics.

I am thankful to entire Execute, in particular to Prof. A. K. Nayak and Prof. M. N. Hoda for their continuous support in bringing this issue successfully.

On behalf of publication committee, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all authors and reviewers for their contributions and support to this issue.

I hope this issue will be successful in providing various aspects of Robotics to IT community. The next issue of CSI Communications will be on the theme “Virtual Reality”. We invite the contributions from CSI members who are working in the area of Virtual Reality.

Finally, we look forward to receive the feedback, contribution, criticism, suggestions from our esteemed members and readers at [email protected] best wishes,

Dr. Vipin TyagiEditor

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President’s Message

Dr. Anirban Basu, Bangalore, [email protected]

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Dear CSI members,

For the last three months, we have been working on improving the working of CSI, bringing in more transparency in management, stopping all wasteful expenditures and giving more benefits to our members. It is a huge task and cannot be done as quickly as we would like. However we have started the process and started reviewing earlier arrangements and evaluating if they have been beneficial to the interests of CSI.

Due to attrition of employees, we have recruited two youngsters in CSI Education Directorate in Chennai who have been assigned to work actively in marketing CSI among academic institutions and streamline the database.

Over the years, CSI has signed MOUs with various organizations like British Computer Society, Singapore Computer Society, ISACA etc. Most of these are due for renewal. Our efforts are on to revive the MOUs and implement the terms. We also need to play a proactive role in different organizations in which CSI has representation. After taking over as President, I came to know that CSI has representation in several government bodies like AICTE, Bureau of Indian Standards etc. In some cases, we had nominated our representatives who did not attend the meetings. Due to this our image has been tarnished. I have been personally working on increasing CSI representation in different prestigious organizations. We will soon be asking for selection of CSI members to represent us in different bodies. This will be done as and when nominations are asked for.

We have put up the list of Distinguished Consultants in the CSI web site. The list includes all Members who had applied and are our Fellows. SEARCC has announced International Awards in three categories. We have asked nominations from our Members and selection will be made by three different Committees comprising of ExecCom Members and does not include Office Bearers of CSI. They will be selecting two nominations in each category and we will forwarding these nominations. However, as announced members can apply directly by paying prescribed fee.

Unfortunately, most of the Chapters and SIGs are not active except very few. I have been trying to activate them. The professional activities carried out by a Chapter/ SIG depends upon the leadership. We have to choose leaders who can devote time for the activities, have good networking skills, and have skills in organizing events on advanced topics. Good events held under the banner of CSI will improve our image and can attract more members.

Days are changing and we need to work in line with Government of India’s policies particularly on Smart Cities, Make in India, Digital India etc. Innovation needs to be encouraged and we are thinking on building an incubation center.

Let me reiterate that CSI gives opportunities for professional growth of our members. We can do lot more as we have flexibility in operations. For this, we would like to encourage suggestions from our members on how to improve further. They can send mails with their suggestions to [email protected]/ [email protected].

Best wishes,

Dr. Anirban BasuPresident, CSI

01 July 2016

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

Dear CSIians,

COMPUTER SOCIETY OF INDIA (CSI) is going through an evolution phase in a world of customization and instant gratification, being flexible will become increasingly important to our sustainability. Sustainability is all about three core values Human, Environment and Economic wellbeing. All of these are interrelated. They are not independent. On the contrary, they are very much interdependent. There are large trade-offs between all three values. Not all the three values are equal, Human and Environment wellbeing goals to be achieved. Economic wellbeing is a mean to be able to achieve sustainability and to maintain so over time.

On the above note, I would like to request all ExecCom Members, Chapter Chairman & MC Members to devote their valuable time for the membership growth of CSI at different levels. We are also planning to take up more initiatives under the noble leadership of Dr. Anirban Basu to boost up the societal activities at various levels. Along with the activities some initiatives are planned for the coming years in the field of skill development in the area of Computer science & IT.

Our prime focus is to setup the new Student Branches in various regions and involve more number of students in CSI and conduct workshops, seminars, guest lectures in collaboration with our Institutional members and Corporate members for our beloved student members by creating awareness on the emerging trends in CS & IT.

For a sustainable CSI, I strongly believe on five factors i.e., Member Recruitment, Member Assimilation, Member Engagement, Member Retention and Member Evangelist. As this is a process, all the factors are taken into account by all the OBs at National Level and expecting an ample support from all Region/State/Chapter level members to understand the process and contribute their efforts accordingly.

In a conclusion note, I would like to state that, the training strategy for strong, sustainable and balanced growth addresses strategic issues as well as practical arrangements. It provides a platform for further exchange of ideas and experiences among a wide range of institutions, enterprises, experts from all members.

“KarmanyeVadhikaraste Ma PhaleshuKadachana,Ma Karma PhalaHeturBhurmaTeySangostvaAkarmani”

(Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Two verse 47)

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”

For feedback & suggestions please write to - [email protected].

With kind regards

Sanjay MohapatraVice President, CSICell : 09861010656

Mr. Sanjay Moahapatra, Bhubaneswar, [email protected]

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Vice President’s desk

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Affordable Robotics for Innovative Education and Outreach

Shunmugham R. Pandian Department of Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing-Kancheepuram, Chennai

Robotics is one of the major and disruptive technologies of our times, with significant impact on economic and social development. Yet, India significantly lags in research, development, and deployment of robots. As machines in general and robots in particular are very appealing to the imagination of children and youth, efforts are being taken the world over in introducing robots to make all levels of education creative and innovative. In this paper, an outline of the potential of affordable robots in education and community outreach using open source hardware and free software technologies is presented, along with representative examples.

IntroductionThe field of robotics was born in

the 1950s with the development of multi-functional, reprogrammable manipulators for use on the factory floor. Major use of robots initially was for 3D jobs: Dull, Dirty, or Dangerous. Robots facilitated rapid growth of flexible or soft automation and led to rapid improvements in industrial productivity, while also causing loss of manufacturing jobs due to automation [1].

Robots moved outside the factory floor, acquiring mobility in the field, underwater and air. The primary means of locomotion have been wheels, tracks, and legs in the case of field robots. Humanoid robots that mimic human performance remain the holy grail of robotics. Multi-legged, animal-type mobile robots are also under development as load-carrying mules to support soldiers.

Mobile robots were initially mainly used for monitoring and surveillance, and later came to be fitted with on-board manipulators. Precise, coordinated control of vehicles-manipulator systems is fairly straightforward in the case of field robots (e.g., bomb defusing robots). Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are also often fitted with one or two manipulators, and research is active on extending underwater manipulation and intervention capabilities to autonomous underwater vehicles [2]. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are

also being equipped with manipulators, making them dexterous [3].

State-of-art research in robotics is now more focused on autonomous robots, by providing robots with capabilities of learning, adaptation, intelligence, and cognition [4]. Self-driving vehicles are also a major type of autonomous robots and have made come a long way since the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge [5].

Despite the fascination of the public with robots and their important role in modern industry and services sectors, the field of robotics is still very much underdeveloped in India. There are no major Indian manufacturers of industrial manipulators, and research and development in robotics is largely limited to a few government laboratories and higher educational institutes. While several robotics startups have come in recent years, the numbers of state-of-art robots in India are quite limited, and largely imported and so very expensive.

A concerted national level effort in robotics education is urgently needed to train a creative workforce capable of research, development, and production in nationally crucial areas like industrial robots (manipulators and guided vehicles), autonomous robots, drones, underwater vehicles and manipulators, etc.

Robotics education and R&D are highly multidisciplinary, involving materials selection and mechanical

design, electronic and computer hardware, control and software, and increasingly data science. Therefore, robotics education in our higher educational institutions must be encouraged through inter-disciplinary coursework, thesis research, and extracurricular projects (e.g., through Robotics Clubs, Maker Spaces, and so on).

Another area in which India lags developed countries is outreach: this relates to synergy between research institutions and higher education on the one hand, and schools and community on the other. Outreach can raise technological literacy among the public and children, and inspire the pursuit of excellence in S&T and innovative education. For instance, the US National Science Foundation which is the world’s leading agency sponsoring fundamental research and education in science and engineering, mandates that all research grant proposals satisfy a second, Broader Impacts criterion, in addition to the primary criterion of Intellectual Merit, in order to receive funding. Examples of broader impacts include building educational talent, improving society, international cooperation, and outreach [6].

As children and youth find machines in general, and robots in particular very appealing and exciting, research and education in robotics lend themselves naturally to community and schools

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

outreach. Robotics technologies are also part of the emerging Citizen Science in many countries.

Affordable Robotics EducationA 2013 study by McKinsey

Consulting identified advanced robotics and semi-autonomous/ autonomous vehicles as two of the twelve major disruptive technologies of our times [7]. Since robotic systems involve integration of sensors, actuators, controllers, and increasingly mobile/wireless networking, Internet, and analytics, education and experience in robotics also helps with several other technologies in the list: Mobile Internet, Internet of Things, Cloud technology, Next-generation genomics (as tools), 3D printing, Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery (as tools) and Renewable energy. These disruptive technologies provide India with an estimated $20 trillion opportunity in innovation and economic development [8].

India has a large youth population (so-called demographic dividend) who must be provided gainful employment. In this regard, the manufacturing sector offers promise for graduates and dropouts of colleges, polytechnics, ITIs, and high schools, since with increasing automation of software and knowledge work (another disruptive technology in the McKinsey list), the hitherto productive information technology (IT) sector cannot be expected to provide major employment to this, predominantly mofussil and rural, vernacular-speaking segment of the Indian youth population.

As China’s population ages rapidly and its factory wages keep rising, an estimated 80 million manufacturing jobs are expected to be outsourced from China to other countries, including India. Semiconductor electronic manu-facturing alone is expected to create 28 million new jobs by 2020. This achievement will be remarkable, if we compare the fact that the entire IT industry in India has created 3.1 million jobs.

Realizing the magnitude of this opportunity, the Indian government has recently introduced major initiatives such as Make in India, Startup India, Digital India, and Skills India. However, a significant constraint in achieving these

goals is that the Indian educational system even in a practical discipline like engineering is largely passive, text-book based, and teacher-centric. The popular teaching learning process in India is still based on the chalk and talk paradigm.

In developed countries like the USA, there is an increasing emphasis on introducing robotics as early as first year to maintain interest of students in engineering and improve retention [9]. Robots are also part of the curriculum as early as middle schools, through hands-on learning in design, electronics, and programming. Competitions such as FIRST Robotics and FIRST Lego League are organized for high schools and middle school students respectively, as part of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum, so that the workforce of the future will be creative and innovative. As robotics often involves digital art and interactive/physical computing, it is also part of the so-called STEAM (STEM + Arts) initiatives to promote creative and artistic thinking in schools.

Many of the robotics learning activities abroad are based on commercial kits like Lego Mindstorms and Vex Robotics which cost around $450 (more than Rs 30,000). However, in India about one-third of the population earns less than a dollar a day, while two-thirds of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. Therefore, our robotics education at school level must be designed and developed to be affordable, accessible, and available to these less resourceful sections of population at the bottom of the pyramid.

Open Source Hardware and Software for Affordable Robotics

Over the past few decades, major developments in materials, electronics and manufacturing have resulted in ever decreasing cost, size, and power consumption on the one hand, and ever increasing capability, portability, and utility of components and subsystems like actuators/motors, sensors, computers, controllers, and peripherals like memory, batteries and (wireless) networks. Therefore, there is now a wave of democratization of technology, benefiting the citizens of developing countries like India. A prime example of this trend is the prevalence of low-

cost mobile phones, many of them smart, with impact on communication, business, and services like healthcare.

An interesting comparison of the decreasing cost and increasing power of hardware is shown in Table I. It compares the technical specifications of the guidance computer for the Apollo moon landing project, considered the most expensive engineering project in human history, with a common 32-bit microcontroller.

Table I: Example of democratization of technology

Specs Apollo Guidance Computer

LPC1343 Micro-controller

CPU 2 MHz 72 MHz

RAM 4 KB 8 + 32 KB

ROM 72 KB 1 MB

Weight 40 kg ~ 2 grams

Cost $110 billion $4.50

Another major trend, particularly over the past decade, is the availability of low-cost open source hardware and free, open source software (FOSS). The rapid developments in web technologies and mobile apps have further strengthened these trends, and been enabled by availability of low cost of broadband networks and wireless communication.

A major advantage of open source hardware and software is the vastly reduced efforts and time needed for design, prototyping, and realization of new and innovative products, systems, and technologies. The widespread availability of low-cost 3D printers, 3D scanners, and laser cutters, and services for prototyping and low volume manufacturing services (such as CNC machining centers, injection molding machines, and even 3D metal printers) has greatly aided this development.

The open source movement provides valuable sources like pre-existing designs for mechanical construction and electronic circuits, software development tools like frameworks and application programming interfaces, as well as an expanding online community of worldwide users who provide help and feedback. The Internet is also a major source of knowledge and information for aspiring roboticists, makers, inventors and innovators, and product designers. Further, the

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World Wide Web provides valuable opportunities for commercializing new products, and crowdsourcing of potential entrepreneurs and startups.

As a result, there have been major movements of Do It Yourself (DIY) and Build Your Own (BYO) for building innovations, inventions, and commercial high-tech products. A few areas in which this development has been particularly felt is robotics, mechatronics, embedded systems, Internet of Things, as well as low-cost development of laboratory experimental systems and modules for science and engineering education in universities, colleges, polytechnics, and industrial training institutes, as well as schools, e.g., [10].

Additionally, robot building across the domains of ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles offers economies of scale, in the sense that some of the subsystems and components used in one domain can be used for robot construction in other domains (e.g., after waterproofing). Therefore, faculty and students can reuse both hardware and software among their robots.

Robots, at least at the level of student projects and laboratory experimental modules, lend themselves to design and construction with inexpensive, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS). Therefore, they are a good example of frugal or jugaadh technology and innovations, helping change and improve society [11]. Project-based learning of robotics and mechatronics is also an example of playful learning [12].

Examples of Affordable Robots for Education and Outreach

In this section, we provide a few illustrative examples of DIY mobile robots and manipulators developed in the author’s laboratory for research, education, and outreach. Due to limitations of space, only an overview of the robot systems is given here. Additional details will be made available in near future at www.iiitdm.ac.in/ MHRDTLC/

The basic problem of robot design and building can be considered as one of motor control of a mechanical platform. For example, two mobile robots of wheeled type are shown in Figure 1. The robots were demonstrated

to the visitors (students, staff, and public including school children) during Republic Day celebrations at IIITDM-Kancheepuram in January 2016. The cylindrical robot in the foreground is powered by two geared DC motors coupled to rear wheels. A single caster wheel at the front enables zero-degree turns of the robot. The visiting children were able to control the robot using a commercial video game controller, as well as an Android mobile phone application.

Fig.1 : Mobile robots controlled by children

The mobile robot in the background is a wheeled mobile robot that served as a proof of concept prototype of a self-driving vehicle for campus navigation, under development. The schematic of the vehicle is shown in Figure 2, and currently we are upgrading the control to navigation of a compact car-sized autonomous vehicle.

The basic sensors shown in Figure 2 for the self-driving vehicle are being used in other types of mobile robots, e.g., the quadcopter-type drone shown in Figure 3. The drone here is shown

hoisting the national flag on the eve of Independence Day celebrations on campus in August 2015. For most of the spectators, this was their very first encounter with an actual drone. The DIY drone was built with inexpensive COTS, and was initially controlled using the open source ArduPilot Mega controller. Recently, the controller has been upgraded to the more advanced Pixhawk autopilot system.

Fig. 3 : Drone flying national flag

The GPS module and webcam used in the self-driving vehicle prototype have again been reused in a simple, low-cost remote controlled (RC) boat (Fig. 4) and a remotely operated vehicle system (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4. Remote controlled boat

Fig.2. Architecture of prototype of self-driving vehicle

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ROV Cholan is low-cost, observation class, mini-ROV fitted with on-board camera and LED light inside a water-proof hull and is designed for operation in depths up to 100 meters. It is planned for use in local and regional aquatic environments, mainly for marine archaeological and water quality monitoring. It will also be used as a testbed for research on mini-AUVs.

Fig. 5. Remotely operated vehicle, ROV Cholan

The Internet provides a powerful medium for web- and cloud-based learning for large numbers of students as well as interested public. Figure 6 shows an innovative, low-cost approach to introducing school children with web access to robotics, by letting them race mobile robots in real-time over the Internet.

Fig. 6 : Mobile robot racing over the Internet

Children from a school anywhere (India, or even abroad) can go online and logon to the web server of the robot racing project, and compete with children from other schools (Figure 7). The software used will also be made available for college students to adopt, customize and improve.

Fig. 7 : Robot control from school

The children can use low-cost virtual reality goggles, and get haptic feedback in their controllers when the robots collide with each other or the racing track edges (Figure 8). This provides them an entertaining experience. It is planned to post online detailed instructions for children to build their own robots using open source hardware (Raspberry Pi).

Fig. 8 : Robot racing in the lab

Fig. 9 shows a similar setup for teleoperation of underwater robots (ROV) in the laboratory tank by children over the Internet [13]. The children can be introduced to ROV-building with low-cost components (PVC frame, hobby motors, switches, etc.) through hands-on workshops.

Fig. 9 : Teleoperation of underwater robot

As the government’s recent Swachh Bharat highlights, clean environments are essential to public health and a decent standard of living. To raise environmental literacy and awareness among the public and children, low-cost outdoor wheeled robots are being designed and developed for use by school children as interactive, entertaining high-tech mobile trash

cans. The robots will be equipped with on-board, air quality monitoring and display kits for intimating public about the pollution levels in their environment and their health implications [14]. A schematic of the

Fig. 10 : Schematic of outdoor mobile robot for cleanup by children

The robots discussed so far have educational application, including with use for environmental literacy. Meanwhile, the actuators for robots, when used in reverse, can act as power generators. Therefore, it is possible to harness part of the energy involved in children’s play as back-up power source using electromechanical systems for schools [15]. A variation of this theme was developed recently for indoor power children through pedal power conversion, while playing video games with virtual reality tools (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11 : Pedal power generation with virtual reality video gaming

As the government aims to make India a global manufacturing hub, a major constraint to this goal is the lack of affordable manufacturing technology education equipment for universities, colleges, polytechnic, industrial training institutes, and even high schools. It is possible to use open source hardware and software tools for design, development, and deployment of low-cost, desktop laboratory equipment such as CNC mill, lathe, router, laser cutter, 3D printer, and CIM work cell. Figure 12 shows a very low-cost, DIY 3-axis CNC mill developed using open source software and COTS components such as stepper motors, drivers, and so

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on [16]. Prototype CNC lathe and laser cutter also have been developed and tested.

Fig. 12 : Low-cost, desktop, 3-axis DIY CNC mill

DiscussionsOne of the major problems faced

by the author in robotics research and education in India recently has been the difficulty in procuring quality components like motors, sensors, and mechanical power transmission parts like gears and wheels. However, Necessity is the mother of invention, and hence it has also been a good learning experience for the staff and students to improvise with available components, to design and machine their own mechanical parts (e.g., shaft couplers) using manual/CNC lathe/mill, laser cutter or 3D printer. In the case of the robots shown in Figures 4 and 8 above, the mechanical body of the robots is simply a household plastic storage container, as the students currently lack access to a plastic injection molding machine or the 3D printing of these parts is more expensive.

The outreach efforts of our robotics research and education projects reported here have also had the intended advantage of providing technological immersion experience to local school children, by exposing them to state-of-art technology and robots, for the first time in their experience. Youth and children in affluent countries have the advantage of exposure to high-tech gadgets and technologies (e.g., personal computers, tablets and smart phones, video game consoles, remote controlled and robot toys), which helps them make, innovate, and tinker in their school and college learning.

Finally, the mentoring experience of the school children involved has been quite valuable for the staff and students. University and college students are a valuable human resource for India,

and have a social and moral obligation to serve the society even when they are getting educated, especially with taxpayer funds in a resource-poor country like India. The mentoring of school children – in particular, government schools – can benefit both the mentors and mentees. It provides civic engagement in the local community even before they graduate, and also facilitates effective service learning and learning by teaching. Some of the projects discussed here are good examples of what is called EPICS (Engineering Projects In Community Service) which can be adopted by students and faculty in higher educational institutions on a wide scale [17].

ConclusionsThis paper has provided a brief

overview of the significant potential of robotics technology in education and outreach in the Indian context. Learning outcomes can be strengthened in a playful manner, by introducing robots in colleges in a playful manner, while inspiring the pursuit of innovation while serving societal needs simultaneously.

AcknowledgmentsMany of the robotic systems presented

in this paper were developed as part of the MHRD-funded Teaching Learning Center for Design and Manufacturing Education at IIITDM-Kancheepuram. The contributions of the TLC project engineers, and students working on the projects, are acknowledged.References1. E. Brynjolfsson and A. McAfee, 2016, “The

Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies”, W. W. Norton.

2. S.R. Pandian and N. Sakagami, 2008, “System integration aspects of underwater vehicle-manipulator systems for oceanic exploration”, J. Soc. Instrument & Control Engineers (Japan), 47, pp. 830-836.

3. C. Korpela, M. Orsag, and P. Oh, 2014, “Towards valve turning using a dual-arm

aerial manipulator”, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, Chicago, IL, USA, pp. 3411-3416.

4. G. A. Bekey, 2005, “Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control”, Bradford Books.

5. S. Thrun, et al., 2006, “Stanley: The Robot that Won the DARPA Grand Challenge”, Journal of Field Robotics, 23(9), 661–692.

6. National Science Foundation, “Broader impacts: Improving society”, http://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/special/broaderimpacts/

7. J. Manyika, M. Chui, J. Bughin, R. Dobbs, P. Bisson, and A. Marrs, 2013, “Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy”, McKinsey Global Institute, http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/ disruptive-technologies

8. H. Pulakkat, 2013, “India and the $20 trillion innovation opportunity in these 12 disruptive technologies”, http://articles. economictimes.indiatimes.com/ 2013-06-25/news/40186635_1_ technology-innovation-technology-gap-mobile-internet

9. C. Pomalaza-Raez and B. H. Groff, 2003, “Retention 101: Where Robots Go ... Students Follow”, ASEE J. Engineering Education, 92, pp. 1-6.

10. J. Pearce, 2013, “Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs”, Elsevier.

11. F. Graham, 2012, “Can robotics change the future of a nation?”, July 24, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-18956031

12. S.R. Pandian, 2004, “Playful Learning: Robotics and Mechatronics Projects for Innovative Engineering Education”, Proc. ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conf., Lubbock, TX, USA.

13. S.R. Pandian, K. Hashimoto, K. Dery, and R. Victor, 2004, “Internet-based Control of a Prototype Underwater Robot”, Proc. Int. Conf. Underwater Intervention, New Orleans, LA, USA, pp. 8-13.

14. [14] K. Abraham and S.R. Pandian, 2013, “A low-cost mobile urban environmental monitoring system”, Proc. Int. Conf. Intelligent Systems, Modeling, and Simulation, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 659-664.

15. [15] S.R. Pandian, 2004, “A human power conversion system based on children’s play”, Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Technology and Society, Worcester, MA, 2004, pp. 54-61.

16. [16] S. Pandian and S. R. Pandian, 2014, “A low-cost build-your-own three axis CNC mill prototype”, Int. J. Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, vol. 2(1), pp. 6-11.

17. https://engineering.purdue. edu/EPICS

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About the Author:

Dr. Shunmugham R. Pandian is presently with Department of Electronics Engineering and is Dean (Planning) at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing-Kancheepuram. His areas of research include robotics, mechatronics, and control systems, with applications in environment, renewable energy, and education. He has more than 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals, international and national conferences, and one US patent. During 1992-2012, he did teaching and research at leading universities in Japan and USA. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Robotics in Surgery Shruti Shashi Kumar Ajit Joshi

Researcher, Cerelabs, Mumbai Founder, techxpla.com, Mumbai

1. Introduction to Robotics and healthcare

Czech writer Karel Čapek was the first to term the robots in his play R.U.R. - ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ (1920). In Czech, the word Robota means “forced labour” [1] . Since then, several scientists sprang up to exploit this new branch of science and technology as they could foresee immense potential. Since then, robots have appeared in various forms to assist humans in their times of distress at work, to perform complex tasks and were also extensively used in the areas of manufacturing, industries, research, to aid humans. Very recently, they are being widely used in medicine.

India’s healthcare sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in terms of employment generation and business growth. In India, Hospitals account for the largest share of healthcare expenditure [2]. Healthcare industry comprises of hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, diagnostics, and medical insurance. Rising population, growing incomes, change in one’s lifestyle and more awareness of one’s health are triggers of the growing importance of healthcare industry.

Country with highest total spending per person per year on health is United States (US$ 8362). The diagnostic part is given due importance. Advances in imaging over the past decade have revolutionized almost every aspect in the medical field. Imaging can provide accurate diagnoses. Other than this, it can also lead to better and more successful treatment. With the advancements in technology, we now have computers and robots taking over humans to help in healthcare. They coexist with humans in a way that they can provide accurate results in a laboratory, give warnings or indications in case the parameters go beyond the threshold when it comes to illness, diagnose diseases and also suggest remedies. The overall Indian healthcare market today is worth US$ 100 billion and is expected to grow

to US$ 280 billion by 2020 [3]. In this case, it becomes imperative to utilize the amount in development of better technologies. Robots have been widely used in medicine and newer ways to use them in surgeries are being researched upon.

For every 1000 citizens, the WHO has recommended that there needs to be one doctor at least. However, in India there is a skewed ratio of 1:1700 [4]. In the US, whenever researchers estimate how often a medical error contributes to a hospital patient’s death, the numbers go up each time. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine reported that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals.

2. Robotics as a boon to healthcareRobotics has literally changed the

way surgeons think! In the 19th century, the surgeons had to travel from town to town to perform surgeries on patients who mourned in agony. The procedures also used to take a long time and also involved a lot of trauma for the patients, as there was nothing called anaesthesia in those times. This situation has taken an enormous leap from nothing to everything.

Everything is possible now. At one point of time, humans realized that they need a helping hand of robots, and that’s when the intervention of robots into the medical sector began. It is so much simpler to even perform surgeries on any part of the body, and even transplantations can be easily achieved nowadays.

3. Surgical RobotsIn surgery the robots are

essentially robotic arms which carry instruments with precision to the area which has to be operated, provide clear view to surgeon and ensure the surgeons’ commands are followed with maximum accuracy. They can also carry out remote surgeries, where the surgeon need not be physically present while the patient is being operated [5]. Along with remote surgery these robots

also facilitate invasive surgery and even unmanned surgery and give better control of surgical instruments and increasing view for the surgeon.

4. History of Surgical RobotsThe first robot that was used for

performing surgeries was the - PUMA 560 that was invented in 1985 [6]. The Puma 560 was essentially a robotic surgical arm. It was used to perform a neurosurgical biopsy. It placed a needle inside brain under CT guidance. This system was used for performing a biopsy with much greater precision. This followed various procedures performed by the PUMA system. These were Cholecystectomy (1987) i.e. surgical removal of Gall Bladder and Transurethral resection treatment of prostate (1988). By 1990 AESOP developed by Computer Motion became first system approved by US FDA for its endoscopic surgical procedure. In 1992 Saw ROBODOC used for hip system. In 2000 DA VINCI ROBOT broke new ground. While it follows a trajectory, it created a system to support surgery with minimum insertion [7]. The Da Vinci Robot is shown in Fig. 1. Hands are making motions, instruments following it. The entire surgery performed is made be visible with the help of Camera so that it becomes easy for the surgeons.

Figure 1: Da Vinci Robotic Surgical System

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5. Components of a Robotic Surgery system• The vision system: It will have

an endoscope, the cameras and other equipment to produce a 3d image of the operating area

• The patient side cart: It will have robotic arms to hold endoscope and surgical equipment

• The surgeon console: As name suggests it is used for controlling the robotic arms and the instruments.

6. Applications of Robotic Surgery• Cardiac surgery• Gastrointestinal surgery• Gynaecology • Neurosurgery • Urology • Orthopaedic procedures and

more

7. Functional features of robotics in surgeryFollowing are the functional

features of robotics in surgery: [7]

1. Urology• Utilization of robot for prostate

surgery has shown better outcomes; both functional and oncologic.

• It is now been extended to surgery for renal tumors and bladder tumors, which helps in tissue preservation and smaller scars.

2. Gynaecology Oncology• Robotic arms make operative

surgery easier in the pelvis.• Radical hysterectomy and

lymph node dissection can be done with smaller scars and greater precision.

3. General Surgery/ Colorectal Surgery• Use of robot has increased in

surgery of rectum and upper gastrointestinal procedures

• Trans oral surgery for Head and Neck

• Complex oro-pharyngeal tumours such as base of the tongue, tonsils can be done without splitting the cheek

• Larynx tumour approach can be done trans orally without laryngotomy

About the Authors:

Ms. Shruti Shashi Kumar is Masters in CAD/CAM and Robotics from University of Mumbai. At present she is doing research in Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things at Cerelabs, Mumbai.

Mr. Ajit Joshi [CSI - I1501721] is Founder of Tech blog and webinar portal TechXpla.com Before this he has worked in IT industry for 2 decades in various roles in IT industry mainly in area of channels, Product Management and Presales. He has done engineering from VJTI Mumbai. He can be reached at [email protected].

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4. Thoracic Surgery• Robotic esophagectomy helps

in better clearance of the tumour and lymph nodes

• This is also being used in lung tumours and thymus.

8. Limitations of Robotic SurgeriesThe cost is high for performing

these operations. Due to cost these are limited to certain procedures. Although with increasing adoption costs are likely to become lower.

9. Relationship between Robotics and I.TEvery robot requires certain type of

programming code. A program decides when or how a robot acts in a given situation. A robot may be constructed correctly from electrical and mechanical construction. However unless the programming is correct the robot may perform poorly or not perform at all. Typically these programs are remote control and Artificial intelligence programs. Till now most of the surgical robots are programed for remote control. Also the algorithm in building robots is generic. However some of the Artificial Intelligence techniques have been used in making the surgery minimally invasive, which in turn can be used for improving the surgery. That’s not it! There will be a time when the surgical robots will be autonomous with little or absolutely no human intervention. Artificial Intelligence will also be used in Robotics for patient care, rehabilitation and even telemedicine.The Vision system:

The vision system creates a 3D image. Advances in imaging, 3D visualisation have resulted in unparalleled operating view for surgeons and better results in

operations. All this has happened due to advances in IT industry. 10. Summary and Conclusion

1. Robots help in performing surgery with precision

2. They reduce human error3. Surgery can be conducted by

Robots from places away from the expert surgeon location and has potential of creating a new healthcare discipline like tele surgery.

The main aim of surgeons is that they should be able to heal the disease of the patient and make him functional by the end of it. This vision of the surgeons can be easily accomplished if they extend their hand to such friendly robots that are used for the very benefit of mankind.References[1] Robot <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Robot>, (Accessed on: May 22nd, 2016)[2] Indian healthcare providers to spend

$1.2 billion on IT in 2016: Report <http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/indian-healthcare-providers-to-spend-1-2-bn-on-it-in-2016-report-116062000332_1.html>, (Accessed on: May 21st, 2016)

[3] Healthcare industry in India <http://www.ibef.org/industry/healthcare-india.aspx>, (Accessed on: June 2nd, 2016)

[4] India has just one doctor for every 1,700 |People <http://www.newindianexpress.com/>, (Accessed on: June 1st, 2016)

[5] Remote Surgery <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_surgery> (Accessed on: June 2nd, 2016)

[6] All about Robotic Surgery <http://a l l a b o u t r o b o t i c s u r g e r y . c o m /surgicalrobots.html>, (Accessed on: June 10th, 2016).

[7] Medical Robotics <https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol4/ao2/report.html> (Accessed on: June 12th, 2016)

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Autonomic Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Computer Vision Perspective

Siddhartha Narayana Ram Prasad Padhy, Suman Kumar Choudhury and Pankaj K. Sa Department of CSE, NIT Rourkela

I. IntroductionAutomation is the primary demand

for managing the needs of the steep growth rate of population. It enables an efficient way to handle large sized data leading to efficient decision making. This may include acquiring data, storing them and retrieving them whenever needed. This sudden surge of information transfer and processing by the beginning of the 21st century eventually demands a faster method of data collection and task completion. The Robots of the present age play a very vital role in performing these activities. The ground stationed robots seem far too simple a problem when we try to explore the implementation of airborne and underwater robots to accomplish the before-mentioned tasks. Now, one logical question to ask is for data collection and task management from the above, hot air balloons, satellites, and airplanes are already in place. Also the need for underwater and ground stationed robots can be questioned provided there are submarines and vehicles which perform the task optimally. The answer to that can be broken down into two steps: Firstly, technology is changing every day and somebody is implementing some advanced and sustained algorithms that prove to be better than the earlier ones. The ultimate goal being able to use limited amount of resources at our discretion to achieve the maximum output possible. Secondly, in the past decade, it was tough for a farmer to keep an eye on his large cattle livestock grazing on the field, but now robotics technology has made his life a bit easier by automating his many daily activities which in then time, were manual labor. In general, robots help increase productivity and also provide an edge to the user with the power of decision making along with enough information

at his disposition.When we talk about data acquiring,

the small commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Quad-rotors (Quadcopters) have unmatched quality and precision. These are hardwired robotic structures with constraints being the weight of the airborne system and latency of data transfer. The term UAV as the name suggest is a device capable of making itself airborne. The difference between this and any other airborne devices is that, it can be controlled from a base station or on-board processors taking data as input from the sensors fitted on it. Quad-rotors similarly have the same concept with the only variation that they have four rotors to provide the thrust for take-off, maneuvering and landing. When we say sensors, we also include cameras which are light weight of-course, that provide visual information in real time. It is analogous to our human eye. Some drones have the facility of stereo cameras and the video feed provided from them give a real 3D experience, while some

drones focus on environment sensing with a single on-board camera. Other sensors include Ultrasound Sensors for height measurement, GPS for location estimation, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and many more. It might seem that the more sensors we add, the more information we collect, but such is not the case. Redundancy up to a certain level is acceptable. Beyond that, it violates the weight constraint of the airborne system. The battery itself has its own weight which one has to consider. The duration of the flight is dependent on the quality of the battery and the quality is dependent upon the weight of the substance (Li-Po in most cases) used.

Before we indulge in the details of the drones and the available drones in the market, let us see the specific fields where drones have been used and have put an impact on the ways tasks are accomplished. The first impact of drones and UAVs which has seen widespread success is the use in Air Defense and Reconcile Missions to counter enemy

Fig. 1 : DJI Phantom 4 drone during flight

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targets by the Military of several leading nations in defense sector. They took over the job of traditional fighter jets and bombers. This made pilots free from danger as they will now be at base station far from actual war-zone monitoring the information and sending commands to the drone. Apart from war time needs, drones are also being used by law enforcement units of some countries like France, USA, Germany and U.K among others. The main job of such drones are tracking a certain target on the streets and providing a very different angle and perspective of solution finding to problems like traffic, burglar or hit and run cases to maintain law and order. Apart from enforcing law and order, drones are being widely used for recreational purposes like aerial photography and film making, freelancing and adventure sports. Agriculture and forest departments also have a very high probability of benefiting from the advantages provided by the drone and sensors mounted on it. Weather Forecast can also be done using drones and are in active usage by Meteorological departments across the globe.

This article briefly outlines the popular UAVs available in the market and the specific works they can perform. We subtly describe the usage methods and how they have been useful in the past. We also provide certain hints as to how a drone can be custom made. Further, we elaborate Computer Vision related applications using drone

technology which can provide mid-flight solutions autonomously. Finally, we conclude by a simple question for as to use it as a weapon of mass destruction or as a source of life, knowledge and productivity.

II. Popular UAVs and their TasksUAVs are highly operation specific

and depending on the needs one has to be careful to buy a product tailored for their needs. There are quite a few companies that have quad-rotors/drones/UAVs as their trademark product. Some among them are DJI, Parrot, Lilu, UDI and Blade. On the defense and ammunition sectors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Denel Dynamics (South Africa) are most notable. New Drones are also being developed by flagship companies like Google and Facebook where their primary aim is to increase Internet connectivity across the globe by harnessing the solar power and reaching those corners of the earth where establishing satellites communication methods is not feasible.

Here, we emphasize on the small scale commercial drones available in market for the public and what most can be achieved out of these drones/UAVs. First we shall take a look at the leading quad-rotor making company, DJI from Dajiang Innovation, a China based company. They provide very stable drones and can have a payload of about 100gms to 500gms. They have an excellent camera on-board which can capture 4K quality video and can be used for video processing with

extreme precision. It has binocular CMOS cameras of very low resolutions as well but they are used specifically for obstacle distance measurement alone. The go-pro camera is fit on a gimbal which can rotate on both horizontal and vertical axes which enables a view from all directions. With little training, one can master the art of taking super awesome videos. This drone is primarily being used for movie making where an overhead frame is required and conventional cameras could not achieve those shots. Apart from that some intelligence agencies and traffic control police also use it to get an idea from areal imagery and hence take fast decisions. For development and research purposes as well this drone can be used. Its SDK and developer tools are available on-line and source code on GIT-Hub. Secondly, the Parrot Drone Company is a tough competitor for DJI drones. Parrot Drones are more light weight as compared to DJI counterpart and has protective shields across the blades of the rotors called Protective Hull. Its integration with ROS (Robot Operating System) makes it a viable option for research. Applications include Image Processing, Computer Vision and IoT (Internet of Things). Here however the latency of video data transfer is high and better model Bepop Drone provides better stability and image processing and tracking features.

Also if you love adventure and want to show your talent, then photos and videos are the basic way to do so. But most part of the adventure videos that you have accomplished could not be taped. The present day drones can solve those problems. A new drone in the market which goes by the name “Lily Camera” absolutely suits the purpose. There is a tracker which one has to keep with him and the drone will follow you taking the best shots possible. And moreover the drone is waterproof and even if it falls in the water mid-flight, nothing to worry about. The drop-throw and fly feature is one of the best. All one has to do is throw the drone and it will automatically follow the one who has the tracker. Similarly, if drone racing is the key need then QAV250 from Lumenier is the choice. The QAV250 is highly customizable and various on

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Fig. 2 : Our custom-made Quadcopter

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board processors can be fit depending on the needs of the user. It comes with a basic frame and certain modules which are mandatory. Additional modules can be added and coded accordingly to obtain the best results. Blade drones provide drones majorly for the joy of riding purposes. They can be treated as toys and can be termed as training drones. They also provide some high end drones which have higher payloads and can be used to transport items in the time of need.

As we have shifted towards the goods transport part, it is no surprise drones could be used to deliver goods or orders from restaurants, local shopkeepers, parcels from window shopping delivery and many more. Amazon is trying a new aspect of drone technology which has a higher lifting capacity to deliver its packages in a fast and efficient manner. It has named its project as Amazon Prime Air. A demo of such activity has already been shown by the company. While in these matters, the Domino’s Pizza has also not been far behind this technical advancement. They have made their own drone named DomiCopter used for ultra-fast delivery of pizza in the city. Traffic will no more be an excuse for your pizza being delivered late. However these drones are still under research and there is time for a fully finished product to come to the market.

Another top class drone technology is being provided by the senseFly group. It is a subsidiary group of Parrot Drones. Here they focus more on

application specific drone production. For surveillance usage, Albris drone variant can be used. It has advanced thermal sensing. This feature can be used in cattle herding to locate a lost calf or lamb in the woods by sensing the infrared signatures of the animal. Also mapping of the environment to provide information to ground robots can be done using a specific eBee drone also from senseFly. This mapping feature can be used in mining and sowing seeds and irrigation purposes. The drone can hover over the crop fields and provide information to the farmer for as if any immediate action is to be taken or immediate irrigation is needed. For mining point of view, real time scanning of path in case of any natural calamity in the mine can give a first-hand apprehension of the situation leading

to efficient planning to evade many unpleasant situations which in earlier days claimed a lot of lives.

As we see the usages of drones as per demand, we can take a step further and make it useful for post disaster information collection and evaluation. During calamities like earthquake and tsunami or landslides where certain building unstable and rescue operations become risky themselves, a drone could be send to access and information can be gained from these images and proper action plan can be taken by the rescue operation chiefs. The structural analysis and disaster assessment and response planning are the ley features that the drone technology can achieve. Also viewing the disaster struck region from a bird-eye view will provide better locations for rescue base formation and setting up grievance centers and casualty servicing locations for fast recovery of the situation. It is said that during Nepal crisis of earthquake earlier this year, Zurich, a tech solution firm from USA had proposed to deploy a drone for situation analysis and advice on future steps for the Rescue team.

Other general purposes usage include better video capture in Sports where the ball could be made to track and a new experience could be given to the consumers at home who watch on TV. Many commercial news and sports channel have already deployed this tech under their caps. Even well to do real estate companies are using drones to provide a better and clarified decision

Fig. 3 : NIT Rourkela Campus view, taken by DJI Phantom 4 during twilight

Fig. 4 : NIT Rourkela front building view, taken by DJI Phantom 4 go-pro camera using its gimbal

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making options for their customers while buying a new house or property. The drone can be used to show the attractive aspects of the locality and the surroundings of the property and neighborhood. In a way Drones are a small investments in technology which has a promising return policy.

III. How Computer Vision can help?Until now we showed the various

fields where can use the drones. However, all these advancement is not just the contribution of hardware of the flying machine alone. In the back-end some smart algorithms are playing to provide desired outputs. The drone’s primary sensor, the camera and the information by this sensor is what we are interested in. The video feed obtained from drone must go through certain algorithms and in the output we shall get information which will enable us to take the necessary decisions.

This may include sending appropriate control signals for the drone to carry out or advise some department on the possible solutions at hand at that time and longtime advises if needed.

It is quite clear that image processing techniques have to be applied on the input video frames. This leads us to the idea that it is a problem of computer vision and shall be dealt as such. Computer vision is an approach to understand videos and images by taking into account the understanding of human nature, leading to improved mathematical models and optimized decisions as output. Basically bridging the gap between human visualization and a computer’s visualization and understanding of the physical world is what Computer Vision is all about. There are many computer vision related tasks that can be accomplished using a drone. Some of them are: � Visual 3-D reconstruction of the

surrounding environment � Autonomous navigation of the

drones in unknown environments by avoiding obstacles solely using its camera module

� Precision agriculture, Bridge inspection, Roof inspection, Search and rescue operation, Object Tracking, Hazardous site detecting in Mining fields, Inspection of the disaster hit areas (like flood, earthquake, tsunami) where humans cannot enter easily, Forest fire monitoring, Animal activity recognition, Surveillance of public events, monitoring large gathering, Coastal surveillance, Traffic surveillance, Boarder surveillance

etc. For research purpose Parrots’

AR Drone is most suitable. Also DJI’s Phantom 4 may also come under the cap. When we say research, we do not mean how to fly well, rather we emphasize on how to achieve the tasks mentioned earlier in a more efficient and fast manner. Research can be made on the fault analysis of unstable buildings and devising algorithms which are more robust such that actions can be taken when the drone is airborne. A new research field has emerged where researchers are trying to find a solution to navigate a drone in a GPS denied environment. It is a very challenging task and one has to rely solely on the information received from the camera to take decisions. This decision making process is also being automated using advanced Artificial Intelligence Approach, Deep Learning and Data Mining. The key lies in energy management, increasing flight duration and decreasing latency of data transfer in real time.

For communicating with the drone, Robot Operating System (ROS) is used. This like any other Operating System, provides a hardware level abstraction and allows us to focus on the task at hand rather than the architecture of the drone. So instead of going to hardware level commands for the drone to operate, the ROS helps build some processes called Nodes and information is passed between nodes via topics contained in a message packets. This leaves us to focus on the task to be accomplished rather than digging deeper into the operations of the drone. ROS can be coded using any languages

COVER STORY

Table: Comparison of various UAVs available in market

Available UAVs Features Flight Duration (in min)

DJI Phantom 4 4K video, 12MP photos, DJI GO app, GPS positioning, Obstacle avoidance system, and Visual object tracking technology, maximum altitude 500 m

20 – 28

Parrot AR Drone 720p front and VGA bottom camera, protective hull, GPS, AR. Free Flight app, 92 degree wide angle lens, maximum altitude 100 m

15 – 20

Parrot Bepop 14MP, 1080p camera, Operating range: 2000 m, maximum altitude 100 m 20 – 25

Lily Camera 12MP, 1080p camera, max. Speed 40 km/hr, maximum altitude 15 m, Operating range: 30 m, water proof, GPS, object tracking

18 – 25

eBee senseFly 18.2MP with HD video recording, Thermal image sensor, Operating range: 3000 m, GPS, cruise speed: 40-90 km/hr, automatic 3D flight planning, eMotion2 flight planning app

50 – 60

Fig. 5 : DJI Phantom 4 and Parrot AR Drone Quadcopters flying side by side

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• Coverstory

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like C++, Python or Java and is easy to use once the dynamics and structure of building the Nodes is known. Once ROS connection is established, all kind of image processing, computer vision algorithms and Artificial Intelligence algorithms can be applied to the input information to make the system robust and functioning. If need be and some customization are necessary for research purposes, one can build their own driver for ROS for the drone. However there are some readily available Drone Specific Drivers in the open Source Community (ardrone_autonomy - @GIT-Hub) and it works fine. Drones from Parrot have ROS integration Option. Platform for Simulation is available and is provide by Gazebo. Like ROS, Gazebo is an open source product developed by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. They support a wide range of other robots as well which include ABB arms, Pepper from Softbank and many more. DJI Drones have their own SDKs and Drivers which can be bought from the Internet by paying some nominal fees. There are student editions available as well in low cost.

If ready-made Drones are not suiting, no worries, one can build one themselves. It is not a very difficult task. The entire Drone architecture is divided into electronic modules and each module is available in the market to assemble, code and fly. Online sites like Robomart, provide drone building

guides and huge amount of help can be found at YouTube when one runs into some kind of trouble regarding the assembling. It is basically like pulling together Lego set and then coding it! This custom made drone also has ROS integration features. Depending on the need and taste, either ROS can be used to communicate to the Drone or one can use the traditional UART mode of Communication using Radio Frequencies or Wi-Fi signals.

IV. ConclusionIt does seem like the very job of

small scale commercial drones is to collect photographs and videos alone. And one will not be wrong to say that. But the angle in which these photographs and videos were taken may provide a different angle of solution finding. There is a huge difference in analyzing a problem by staying within one and by hovering above it getting a bird’s eye view. When solutions from these two angles are merged, the margin of decision error reduces manifold. It is no surprise that in wars, where minute mistakes in decision making can claim hundreds of lives, Both aerial and ground station information are put forth for a collective action. This is a booming research field where all countries are trying their hands on UAVs and Drones, each trying to develop one faster and intelligent one than the other. They can be a weapon of mass destruction,

or a tool for efficient management and source for life support. You Choose.

References

[1] Parrot AR Drone 2.0 Quadcopter, http://parrot.com/pl/produkty/ardrone-2

[2] Library for autonomous navigation of Parrot AR Drone Quadcopter through programming, https://g i t h u b . c o m / A u t o n o m y L a b /ardrone_autonomy

[3] Documentation for Parrot AR Drone Quadcopter ROS library ardrone_autonomy, http://ardrone-autonomy.readthedocs.io/en/latest

[4] Parrot’s advanced Bepop Quadcopter, http://parrot.com/pl/produkty/bebop-drone

[5] Parrot’s high speed senseFly Drones, https://sensefly.com/home.html

[6] DJI Phantom 4 Quadcopter, http://dji.com/product/phantom-4

[7] Water proof “Lily Camera” Drones, https://lily.camera

[8] Robot Operating System for controlling any robot through programming, http://ros.org

[9] UAV applications using Computer vision, http://asctec.de/en/uav-uas-drone-applications/computer-vision

[10] Comparison of best drones available in Market, http://drones.specout.com

n

COVER STORY

About the Authors:

Mr. Siddhartha Narayana, is pursuing his Dual degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. His research interest includes Robotics and Computer Vision.

Mr. Ram Prasad Padhy, is currently pursuing his PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela with 3.5 years of industrial experience. His research interest includes Robotics and Computer Vision, Machine learning, and Pattern Recognition.

Mr. Suman Kumar Choudhury, is currently pursuing his PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. His research interest includes Computer Vision, Video Surveillance, Image Processing, and Pattern Recognition.

Mr. Pankaj Kumar Sa [CSI–I0148652] is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela with 10 years of teaching and research experience. His research interest includes Image Processing, Computer Vision and Computer Graphics. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Current Trends in Development of Intelligent Robotic Systems for Manufacturing

Sankha Deb FMS and Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur

Manufacturers are increasingly faced with challenges in the market place of having to deal with low production volumes and high product mix, thus rendering the installation, support and modification of dedicated or fixed automation systems prohibitively expensive and impractical. The demands for flexibility and adaptability are increasingly high priorities for manufacturers. Sensor guided intelligent robotic systems are fast emerging as powerful tools to meet these demands as they can be quickly adapted from one product to the next, facilitating new product introductions in shorter lead times. Advances in sensing technology as they are getting better, smaller and more affordable, coupled with faster computing power for processing the sensor data due to availability of high performance processors and development of clever and more versatile end-of-arm tooling are raising the robot’s IQs to new levels. The application potential of sensor guided intelligent robotic systems range across a wide spectrum of applications in manufacturing industries from automobile to consumer and industrial electronic assemblies. This article presents some of the current trends in development of intelligent robotic systems for manufacturing.

In intelligent robotic systems, sensors provide information necessary to perceive changes in environments and help to adapt accordingly by modifying the robot actions. One of the rapidly growing sensing technologies in industrial robotics is the machine vision. Lowering of costs and higher computing power are thought to be primary drivers in the recent upsurge in increasing adoption of machine vision technologies. Machine vision can be used for recognition of objects in a scene and estimation of their position and orientation before performing manipulation by the robot. During part insertion operations in mechanical

assembly, the necessary guidance and control of the robotic system for adjustment and maintaining alignment between parts can be performed using machine vision. After completion of assembly operations, machine vision is useful for inspection and quality control of the assembled product.

For many years, researchers have been actively investigating the use of machine vision in the control of robotic systems that resulted in different control strategies. In one of the strategies known as “look and move”, the robot first sees and recognizes the environment helped by a machine vision system and after that it performs the motion based on the data acquired in the previous step. The vision system works in this approach as an open loop system as considering a task in which the robot must reach the position of an object in the workspace, the system does not check whether the object is reached; the accuracy of the operation depends on the accuracy of the hardware such as the camera, the manipulator and the controller. An alternative to open loop control is visual servoing, which uses visual information in the control loop feedback thus increasing the overall accuracy of the system. The visual servoing system uses the visual information acquired from a scene by one or more cameras connected to the vision system to control the robot end-effector pose with respect to a specific object in the scene. This closed loop control permits to correct possible errors in the object position estimation obtained from the vision system and makes the system insensitive to calibration errors and relaxes the mechanical accuracy and rigidity requirements for the robot manipulator mechanism. Visual servoing approaches can further broaden the spectrum of application of robot control to unstructured environments as they do not need a-priori knowledge of the workspace.

It is possible to use different visual servoing strategies by placing the cameras following two typical configurations. “Fixed-eye strategy” also known as “eye-to-hand” is a popular control strategy in which a camera is mounted at a fixed position to obtain an overview of the scene. In this case, the camera has no mechanical connection with the robot which is being visually controlled, but the relation between the camera and the robot base frame is known. Another alternative visual servoing strategy is to use a moving camera, also known as “eye-in-hand”, where a camera is mounted on the robot wrist giving a more precise vision of the local environment of the task.

Sometimes number of cameras may be greater than one to obtain a more confident geometric reconstruction of the environment. Stereoscopic imaging can be sometimes useful to obtain 3D information from the scene. A stereoscopic vision system works by interpretation of two views of the scene taken from known different viewpoints with the help of two cameras in order to resolve the depth ambiguity. The location of feature points such as region centroid or a corner feature in one view is matched with the location of the same feature points in the other view. However, matching or correspondence problems may be subject to error. Another difficulty arises where a feature point is visible in only one of the views and therefore, its depth cannot be determined.

Another method of classifying visual servoing approaches is based on position based visual servoing and image based visual servoing. In position based visual servoing, the relative pose of the object to be reached with respect to the camera frame is estimated. The estimated pose of the object is compared with the desired one and the difference between both localizations is the controlling input. On the other hand,

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TECHNICAL TRENDS

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in image based visual servoing systems, the control is directly carried out in the image space. Thereby, the controller input is a comparison between the observed image features and the desired ones.

At IIT Kharagpur, researchers in the FMS and Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory are working on developing machine vision based systems for robot guidance applications in manufacturing. Hoping to bypass the need for tedious and time consuming lead-through robot programming, we are using visual servoing to control the motion of a Yaskawa Motoman industrial robot manipulator by visual feedback signals from a machine vision system obtained using cameras arranged in different configurations such as single camera, multiple cameras in stereoscopic arrangement, etc. Without requiring robot programming for teaching the trajectory by moving the manipulator with a teach pendent, the robot can be controlled to move inside its work environment to accomplish various manufacturing tasks such as pick and place from a conveyor, palletizing/depalletizing, loading/unloading machines and even do precise component insertion tasks in mechanical assembly. Research is under way on sensor fusion by combining sensory data from multiple sensors in enhancing the autonomous guidance capability of industrial robots. We plan to use machine vision in conjunction with other sensors like laser range finders for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) applications in industrial robots. It is aimed at building a map of the work environment of the robot, while at the same time navigating the environment using the map. SLAM applications had been so far limited to autonomous mobile robot navigation and autonomous aerial navigation.

Touch sensing with force/torque feedback is another rapidly growing sensing technology in industrial robotics. It can provide the industrial robots with the ability to manipulate objects for precision manufacturing applications such as parts fitting and part insertions in mechanical assemblies. These sensors can be classified based on the number of force components that the sensor is able to measure. The choice can range from one-component sensors known

as load cells to Force/Toque sensors able to separately measure upto six components of force and torque. An important aspect in selection of this sensor is the application and installation site on the manipulator. For example, in case of control of grasping force applied by the gripper, simple load cells can be installed on each finger. In insertion operations, a very common application consists of a Force/Torque sensor mounted between the robot wrist and the end-effector or gripper which can be used to actively compensate insertion misalignments.

Multi-sensor guidance with machine vision used in conjunction with force feedback can offer the potential to provide industrial robots with the capability to execute complex assembly tasks autonomously with pretty much the same level of dexterity exhibited by skilled human workers , who reply on complex coordination between the eyes and the hand during execution of such tasks. Some laboratory scale applications have been reported by researchers on robotic assembly programming using force/torque maps obtained from force/torque sensors in conjunction with machine vision. In some cases, with the aid of such multi-sensor guidance, robots can be made to perform complex manufacturing tasks beyond the capability of even the most skilled human worker as required in some high precision assembly operations, where small parts have to be manipulated and assembled together within very tight micron level tolerances.

One of the essential capabilities needed to address the challenges that the manufacturers are facing in production of parts in low volumes and high product mix is believed to be robots that are equipped with more general purpose and versatile end-of-arm tooling or grippers that are able to quickly and adeptly grasp and manipulate a broad range of part shapes. Such grippers need to incorporate force and tactile sensing capabilities to make grasping adjustments on the fly and to mimic some of the human dexterity in grasping. The past few decades saw the development of different gripper designs in the research laboratories. The robot grippers range in number of fingers from two to three or more fingers and employ a variety of different actuation mechanisms from

link actuated mechanisms to tendon driven mechanisms. At IIT Kharagpur, researchers are working on designing and developing multi-finger dexterous robot grippers based on link as well as tendon driven actuated mechanisms for application in industrial robots. Research is also ongoing to incorporate tactile and force sensing capabilities in the hand and develop intelligent force control strategies for manipulation of objects of different shapes. Research is also underway in our laboratory to develop strategies for multi-finger grasp level planning for objects of different shapes.

Over the decades, different prototypes of sensor based intelligent robotic systems have been developed in laboratory scale in different universities around the world. However, there are still numerous challenges that need to be overcome to reach a level of maturity where we can transition these prototypes out of the laboratory and into commercial applications in industry. In many cases, the sensors being laboratory based solutions are difficult to integrate directly or are expensive to be cost-effective. Even though individual sensors can be used to measure process quantities and supply signals for process monitoring, in order to develop multi-sensor systems to allow several quantities of data to be acquired, there is need to develop robust sensor fusion technologies that would allow intelligent signal processing of the multiple measurement quantities of such multi-sensor systems.

Bibliography1. Agrawal, S. (2016), Vision based

automated robotic assembly, M. Tech Thesis, IIT Kharagpur.

2. Chen, H., Zhang, B. and Zhang, G. (2015), Robotic Assembly, Handbook of Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, Springer-Verlag London.

3. Das, A. and Deb, Sankha (2010), Grasping strategies for a dexterous multi-finger robot gripper, Proceedings of 3rd International and 24th AIMTDR Conference, Vishakapatnam, India.

4. Deb, S. R. and Deb, Sankha (2009), Robotics Technology and Flexible Automation, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2nd Edition.

5. Jain, A. (2016), Design and development of a multi-finger

TECHNICAL TRENDS

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robot gripper for material handling applications, M. Tech. Thesis, IIT Kharagpur.

6. Nof, S. Y. (1999), Handbook of Industrial Robotics, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2nd Edition.

7. Pal, S., Chattopadhyay, S. and Deb, S. R. (2008), Design and development of a multi-degrees of freedom dexterous instrumented robot gripper, Sensors & Transducers Journal, Vol. 87/1, pp.

63-73.8. Sainul, I. A., Deb, Sankha and Deb,

A. K. (2016), A three finger tendon driven robotic hand design and its kinematic model, in CAD, CAM, Robotics and Factories of the Future, Springer Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, eds. D. K. Mandal and C. S. Syan, pp. 313-321.

9. Santochi, M. and Dini, G. (1998), Sensor Technology in Assembly Systems, Annals of CIRP, Vol. 47/2,

pp. 503-524.10. Siciliano, B. and Khatib, O. (2008),

Springer Handbook of Robotics, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

11. Thomas, U., Molkenstruck, S., Iser, R. and Wahl, F. M. (2007), Multi Sensor Fusion in Robot Assembly Using Particle Filters, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Roma, Italy.

TECHNICAL TRENDS

About the Authors:

Dr. Sankha Deb is a faculty member of Mechanical Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur. He obtained his PhD in Industrial Engineering in 2005 from Ecole Polytechnique Montreal, Canada, after doing M.Tech in Manufacturing Process Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Durgapur. He had earlier served as a faculty member in IIT Guwahati and ISI Kolkata. He was also invited as a visiting faculty member in Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at University of Montreal, Canada in 2008 and 2009. He had also served in Voltas Ltd. for one year. His research interests include Computer Integrated Manufacturing, FMS, Automation and Robotics, and Micro-manufacturing. He coauthored a book on Robotics Technology and Flexible Automation. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Call for Papers

CCIS 2016(IEEE Conference Record : 39590)

2nd International Conference on Communication Control and Intelligent Systems(Fri-Sun) November 18-20, 2016 | www.gla.ac.in/ccis2016

Organized by: Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

Introduction:Technically co-sponsored by IEEE U.P., Section and in association with CSI Mathura Chapter, the second international conference and 11th conference in sequence, Communication Control and Intelligent Systems (CCIS 2016) will be held on November 18th -20th , 2016. CCIS 2016 is an international conference where theory, practice and applications of communication systems, control systems, intelligent systems and allied areas are to be presented and discussed.

Conference Theme:Technical paper Submissions are invited under the following topics, but are not limited to:-Track-1: Wireless and Wired Networks, Multimedia Communications, computer Networks, Optical networks, Networking& Applications, Next Generation ServicesTrack-2 : Control Systems, Nonlinear Signals and Systems, Embedded systems and software, intelligent systems, neural networks and fuzzy Logic, Robotics and applications, Machine learning and soft computing, System identification and control, Algorithms and Computing.Track-3 : VLSI Technology, Design & Testing , Signal processing, ,Bio-Medical Processing, Speech image and video processing, Analog and Mixed Signal Processing, Hardware Implementation for Signal Processing, Text processing, Database and data miningTrack-4 : Monolithic and hybrid integrated (active and passive) components and circuits, Antennas and phased arrays, RF packaging and package modeling, RF MEMS and Microsystems, EMI/EMCTrack-5: Adhoc Networks, ubiquitous and Cloud computing, Distributed and parallel systems, Security and information systems, Network security

SubmissionProspective authors are encouraged to submit their paper through easy chair. The link is available on the conference website. Submissions must be plagiarism

free and not more than five pages in IEEE format.Use the following link to submit your papers. https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccis20160

Proceedings PublicationAll Accepted and presented papers of the conference by duly registered author(s), will be submitted to IEEE Xplore digital library for possible publication. (IEEE Conference Rocord: 39590). Proceedings of 1st international conference CCIS-2015 available at IEEE xplore on the link: ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=7433555

Important Dates/Deadlines

July 16, 2016 Submission of regular paper

August 25, 2016 Paper acceptance notification to authors

September 25, 2016 Last Date of registration

October 03, 2016 Last Date of Camera Ready Copy Submission

October 03, 2016 Last Date of Copyright form Submission

Registration DetailsAll delegates are required to register for the conference as per the following details:

Corporate Executive and Professional ` 12,000 /-

Academicians IEEE/ICEIT/CSI/IETE Members ` 8,000 /-

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Students IEEE/ICEIT/CSI/IETE Members ` 5,000 /-

Student Non Members ` 6,500/-

Academicians from abroad US$300

For any inquiry please Contact :[email protected]. Abhay Chaturvedi (Technical Program Committee Chair): +91-9997728756, Mr. Aasheesh Shukla (Technical Program CommitteeChair): +91-8126130707Mr. Manish Kumar (Publicity Committee Chair): +91-9719232004, Mr. Suneel Kumar, (Publicity Committee Member): +91-7500391880

GLA University, Mathura, 17 km stone, NH-2, Mathura Delhi Road, P.O. Chaumuha, Mathura-281406, UP. IndiaTel: (05662) 250909, 250900, 9927064017,Fax: (05662)241687, Website: www.gla.ac.in

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Internet Of Robotics Things (IORT) – Embedded IOT Enabled Robotics Technology

S. S. Aravinth, P. Sachidhanandam, R. Karthick and M. Senthilkumar Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem

IOT and robotics are the captivating technologies which are giving more commercial applications today. IOT gives the connectivity from the physical environment to embedded objects. The incorporation and interplay between IOT and Robotics are expected to yield the network connectivity. Machine to Machine (M2M) connectivity needs the networking intelligence to act as an autonomous. This confluence gives the “Assisting for Human Beings Environment (AHBE)”. The robotics platform fire bird V ATMEGA 2560 is getting acquainted with embedded sensor robotics environment. In this work, the valet parking system is implemented on fire bird v robot. This is a phased approach. Here we have presented the fire bird v platform overview, sensors utilization and implementation. This idea was implemented during the competition of IIT e yantra Teachers Competition 2014. A team of five faculties from various departments have been participating and implementing this activity based project learning. Initially all the assignments were submitted through online such as theme analysis, study of hardware and software, implementation analysis and document submission.

The combination of IOT and Robotics will give enormous applications in future technological trends. The applications of robotics technology are widely scattered. To promote the research activity in embedded sensor IOT with robotics technology is the aim and focus of this paper. The applications of this new approach provide the deployment of sensor devices and its platform on robotics intelligence. Hence, in future this approach will get more attention to the researchers.

I. Platform Analysis

Sensors on Firebird V

1. 8 IR Proximity Sensors :– These sensors are generally used

for detecting the objects of any types in the short range i.e. within 10cm distance from the robot. If the obstacle is closer to the sensor then light gets reflected much and falls on the photodiode and the leakage current will flow through the diode, hence, the sensor will detect the object easily. It will consume 51mA current from the battery for the operation. We can also use IR sensor as directional light intensity sensor if we turn-off IR LED.

2. 5 Sharp IR Range Sensors : – These sensors are used to detect

the obstacles from the distance in the range of 10cm – 80cm. This will not work well if the obstacle is closer i.e. less than 10cm from the robot. This works on the principle of “Angle of Reflection” and not on “Light Intensity”. Analog output voltage is produced corresponding to the angle of reflection

Fig 1. Sharp Sensor on FIREBIRD V

3. 3.3 White Line Sensors : – Firebird V robot has 3 white line

sensors arranged as Left, Center and Right for detecting and differentiating the white and black line surfaces. This sensor has red LED as transmitter and photodiode as receiver. This red LED’s are controlled by PG5 pin (in Port G) of ATMEGA2560 microcontroller. It can be extended up to 7 sensors.

4. Ultrasonic Range Sensors : – This sensor can be used to sense

the object from 6 inches to 254 inches. The robot can be equipped with 5

ultrasonic range sensors.

5. 2 Position Encoders: – It is used to control the position and

velocity of the robot by giving feedback to the microcontroller. Optical encoder MOC 7811 is used as position encoder. Its resolution is 5.44 mm. It can be extendable to 4 sensors. Voltage and Current sensing sensors can also be used.

6. DC motorIt is used to make the robot for the

locomotion control including direction and velocity. For the given theme, DC motors can be used to move the robot in forward direction, backward direction and rotation by 90 degree or 180 degree either clockwise or anti-clockwise.

7. Buzzer - It is used to give the beep sound

for each occupied status irrespective of their slot and at the end of the task.

8. LCD Display – It is used to show the available slot

numbers in resident and visitor slots of the arena. It can also be used to display

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the values read on sensors when they operate

II. Software Used1. ATMEL AVR Studio is used for

programming the Firebird V robot. In addition, WIN AVR compiler and Boot loader software for completing the task is used.

2. First, we need to install WINAVR compiler in anyone of the drive in PC.

3. Install AVR Studio in the same drive as per the steps given in the manual. This AVR Studio is an IDE for writing and debugging AVR Applications.

4. After installing, the AVR Studio, window will be opened when the icon is clicked. It has coding window where the program can be written and it has to be saved with the extension .C. Then, it will be compiled by clicking Build Rebuild All. The Build window shows compilation result such as errors, warning message etc. If error comes, then make the correction on the program. During Compilation, .hexfile is created in the default folder.

5. Then, install Boot loader software to transfer .hex file from PC to Firebird V robot. This software will provide Port number, Baud rate and other options. By selecting the port number, .hex file can be loaded on the Boot loader software.

6. The loaded .hex file will compile and gives the result. If the program has errors, then necessary modifications to be done in the program the compilation process is done and other procedure to execute the same.

III. Fire Bird V Atmega 2560

The theme Valet Parking Robot is an autonomous system that can be used to park the vehicles for the visitor at the appropriate places available nearest to OUT position in the given parking lot having slot type, status and number from 1 to 9.The robot has to start at a visitor at IN position and cover the entire arena traversing through the black line path consisting of black nodes. During the traversal, robot has to identify the type of the slot (either

Resident or Visitor) and status of the slot (either Occupied or Available) using black nodes. If it finds slot status as “Occupied”, then buzzer would sound for 200ms irrespective of the slot type and if slot status is “Available” then it has to note down its slot number and type. When the robot reaches the OUT position after traversing the entire arena, then it has to turn and park itself at the visitor slot nearest to the OUT position. Having parked, the robot has to display the numbers of all the available slots type on LCD screen as per the format with the continuous buzzer sound. If all the visitor’s slots are occupied, then LCD screen should display “No Space” for visitor slot. The purpose of making such a robot is to make the proper parking for the visitor without making disturbance to the resident’s parking area in the particular places such as apartment building, quarters etc.

IV. Implementation

1. Environment Sensing:

12 cm

Supporting tools

Sharp Sensor-It can be used to identify the type of the slot in the given theme.

Left Side View of the Robot

IR Proximilty Sensor - It can be used to Identify whether the slot is occupied by the vehicle or available.

Fig. 1 : Left Side View of the Robot

Firebird V has two major sensors namely Sharp sensor and IR Proximity sensor. Sharp sensor is used to identify the type of the slot whereas IR proximity sensor is used to detect the state of the parking slot. These sensors are positioned as shown in Fig.1 to detect the type and state of the parking slot in the given theme.

When positioning the sharp sensor with supporting tools on the Firebird V robot, it will sense the object and would read the value denoted as L1 (maximum value given by sensor) if the slot is resident. The sharp sensor would read the value denoted as L2 (maximum value given by sensor) if the slot is visitor. Both L1 and L2 values are obtained based on the distance

between the sensor and the slot. During the implementation, as per the distance the sharp sensor would read the values below L1 and L2 so that the slots can be identified. This would happen for the first node point of each slot. It is clearly shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3

L1-Value given by sensor as per the distance between Sharp sensor and Resident slot

Resident slot

L1

Fig. 2 : Resident Slot sensing position by Sharp Sensor

L2-Value given by the sensor as per distance between sharp sensor and visitor slot

Visitor Slot

Fig. 3 Visitor Slot sensing by Sharp Sensor

L2

2. Working of Sharp Sensor This sensor, working is based on

the principle of Angle of Reflection, that can be used to identify the type of the slot in the given arena. This sensor is capable to identify the objects between the distances of 10cm and 80cm. In the given task, flags have different dimensions. Based on the dimensions, both resident flag and visitor flag has difference in distance from the node point of the black line in the given arena. This difference in distance can easily be sensed by sharp sensor. Based on this difference in distance, it will provide different values so that type of the slot would be identified

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Vehicle

M-Value Representing the occupied status given by IR sensor

M

Fig. 4 : IR Sensor Vehicle Sensing Position

3. Working of Proximity Sensor It can be used to identify the

status of the slot such as “Occupied or Available”. This sensor can generally be used to detect the object within 10cm distance. Based on the presence and absence of the object, this sensor will give us the different values. Hence, the status of the slot can be identified.

4. Working of White Line Following Sensor These sensors could be used to

make the robot to follow the black line for traversing the arena. During locomotion, the left and right white line sensors would follow the white surface of the arena whereas the center white line sensor would follow the black surface indicating a value greater than 40.

5. Locomotion DC motors are used for the

locomotion purpose includes direction and velocity control in the Firebird V robot. For the direction control of DC motor, the dual driver IC L293D could be used. The speed of the DC motors is controlled by using PWM techniques. To move the robot in any one of the specific direction, enabling the direction control using pins of PORT A register from PA(0) - PA(3) as per the logical level and Motor driver IC L293D. The logical level includes Forward motion, backward motion, Soft left and right etc. DC motors velocity control can be done using PWM technique.

In addition, Timer 5 can be used for PWM generation and controlling the speed of motors. Fig.5 describes the overall view of the locomotion of the robot in the given arena. The robot starts at IN position in the arena. For

traversing the entire arena, the Robot has to follow the black line using white line sensor. When the robot follows the black line, the left and right white line sensors have to follow the white surface whereas the center white line sensor has to follow the black surface. In each node points of the arena, all the white line sensors values are greater than 40 indicating a black surface.

So, the robot may stop at the node point depending upon the time. During the stop position of the robot at a node point, the positioned sharp and IR proximity sensors will identify the type and status of the slot as illustrated in Fig. 6. After identifying the type and status of the slot, the robot has to follow the black line. The same process is repeated for each node present in the arena.

Fig.5 : Locomotion view of the Robot

Parking of the Robot at available Visitor slot and nearest to OUT position

Sharp sensor used to Identify the Visitor slot

IR Proximity Sensor used to Identify the Status of the slot

Locomotion of the Robot following Black Line

Sharp Sensor used to Identify the Resident slot

Fig. 6 : Theme Implementation Overview

Robot reaches the corner so that it has to take right in clock wise direction

Robot reaches the corner so that it has to take right in clock wise direction

For each node identifies the type and status of the slot by sensor used

Robot starts at IN position and follows the black line using white line sensors

The OUT position should stop as shown in Fig. 7. During stop, it will display all the available resident and visitor slots in LCD display and the Buzzer starts to give the beep sound continuously for indicating the END operation.

ConclusionThis above project has been

implemented a team of four faculty

members for e yantra competition. The main objective of the work is to connect embedded IOT programming with robotics technology. As the IOT and robotics are playing the major role in massive scale sensor programming domain, the new technical methods, computational representations, tools for deployment, programming platforms are highly encouraged to cope with these technical advancements. In future, more sensor programming based robots will be designed and launched in the market to assist all living beings without the intervention of any persons. As an example, in the battle field, human rescuing robots, multiple object target robot and automatic enemy alert robots are getting developed.

Fig. 7 : Visitor slot and Robot Parking position

All the visitor slots are filled (as indicated), the Robot has come to OUT position

AlgorithmTo implement the given task, the following parameters are used in the Algorithm part R - Represents ‘Resident Slot’ V - Represents ‘Visitor Slot’ RS - Represents ‘Status of Resident Slot’ VS - Represents ‘Status of Visitor Slot’ JV - Junction Value for Plating the Robot near to OUT

position l1, l2 - Maximum value of sharp sensor at resident slot

and IR proximity sensor at visitor slot respectivelySteps1. Start the Program2. Initialize the condition variables R=0, V=0, VS=0, JV=0, RV=0.3. Robot has to follow the black line.4. If the robot reaches black node, the junction value increased

by 1 and read the sharp sensor value. Else go to step 35. If the sharp sensor value is less than L1, then R value

increased by 1; Move to next node and read IR sensor value. If it is less than M, Buzzer ON. Else RS increased by 1 and Go to Step 3

6. Else if sharp sensor value less than L2, then V value increased by 1; Move to next node and read IR sensor value. If it is less than M, Buzzer ON. Else VS increased by 1; Set RV = IV and Go to step 37. If JV = 20 and RVI = 0, Set JV = JV - RV. Else Go to OUT position and Buzzer ON.8. If JV=0, Rotate 90 degree right and Stop. Else Rotate 180 degree; Move to JVm node then rotate 90 degree left and move to destination.9. Display the values of RS, VS and Continuous Buzzer ON10. Stop the program.

References 1. www.e-yantra.com2. www.elsi.com3. www.axeda.com

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Mr. S. S. Aravinth is pursuing Ph.D in the Department of CSE, Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem. His research area is Wireless Sensor Networks. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mr. R. Karthick is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of CSE, Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem.

Mr. M. Senthikumar [CSI - N1171775] is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of CSE, Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem.

Mr. P. Sachidhanandham is pursuing Ph.D in the Department of CSE, Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem. His research area is Wireless Sensor Networks.

About the Authors:

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Robotics Research Centers in IndiaCompiled by: Dr. Vipin Tyagi, Editor

� Autonomous Robotics Lab, IIT Delhi Research Areas : Robot Control, Mobile Robotics, Tele-Operation of Robots, Computer Vision based Robot Control, Haptics and Virtual Reality for Robots, Education in Robotics

� Advanced Reactor Technologies and Nuclear Power Bhabha Atomic Research Center Research Areas : Robotics & remote handling

� Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Defense Research and Development Organization, Bangalore Research Areas : Surveillance/Reconnaissance robotics, Industrial Robotics, Educational Robotics, Search and Rescue Robots, Autonomous Robots

� Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute CMERI, Durgapur, West Bengal Research Areas : Robotics and Mechatronics, Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Rapid Prototyping and Tooling

� Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research CIMFR, Dhanbad, Jharkhand Research Areas : Application of ‘Robots’ in difficult and risky situations

� Centre for Robotics and Control IIT Indore Research Areas : Parallel Robots and Platforms, Underwater and Field Robots, Rehabilitation Robots

� Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems BITS Pilani Research Areas : Humanoid Robots, Autonomous Ground Vehicles, Quad-Rotors

� Intelligent Systems Laboratory IIT Kanpur Research Areas : Intelligent control, Assistive robotics, Cognitive modeling and Quantum learning systems

� Mechatronics with Robotic Applications Lab IIT Ropar Research Areas : Customised Reconfigurable Manipulators, Integrated Design and Fabrication of Robots using Evolutionary Algorithm

� Mobile Robotics Lab IISc Bangalore

Research Areas : Swarm Robotics, Multi-Robot Systems, Cooperative Robotics, Computer Vision, Aerial Robotics, SLAM

� Robotics Lab IIT Guwahati Research Areas : Bio-Inspired, Networked and Emotional Robots, Intelligent Cyber Physical Systems, Speech - Analysis, Recognition & Categorization

� Robotics Laboratory IIT Madras Research Areas : Underwater Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Manipulator Kinematics, Medical Robotics

� Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab IIT Kharagpur Research Areas : Underwater Robotics, Humanoid Robotics, Biomedical Robotics, Virtual and Remote Robotics

� Robotics Research Lab IIIT Hyderabad Research Areas : Mobile and Aerial Robotics, Robotic Vision, Mechanism Design and Multi Robotic Systems

� Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Lab IIIT Allahabad Research Areas : Human Robot Interaction, Humanoid Robots, Autonomous Robotics

� Robotics and Automation Lab CSIR, CMERI DurgapurResearch Areas : Underwater Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Robotics and Automation, Dynamics and Control, Sensor Fusion

� Robotics and Control Lab IIT Roorkee Research Areas : Space robots, Legged Robots, In Vivo robots, Bionic  robots, Dynamics and Control, Fault identification and reconfiguration

� Surface Robotics Lab CSIR, CMERI DurgapurResearch Areas : Surface Robotics, Mechatronics

e-Yantra [http://e-yantra.org/] is an initiative to spread education in Embedded systems and Robotics by IIT Bombay sponsored by Ministry of Human Resource Development through the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT).

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Energy harvesting for Micro/Nano Robots using a Micro Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Farm based on Movement of Fish in a School

Sreekant Damodara1 N. N. Sharma1,2

1 Mechanical Engineering Department, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani1,2 School of Automobiles, Mechanical & Mechatronics, Manipal University, Jaipur

On board harvesting of energy in micro/nano robots is the biggest challenge in their realization. I the present work, a design for harnessing energy for swarm of nanorobots is presented. The paper summarizes the results of the time dependent simulations that were carried out on COMSOL Multiphysics to evaluate the energy output from a micro-sized Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT). Further, the paper tests the possibility of utilizing the flow patterns in a fish school to increase the efficiency of the turbines in the micro domain. This method utilizes pairs of counter-rotating turbines located near each other such that the rotation of one aids the rotation of the other. A simulation with eight such VAWT’s in the required pattern was designed and a simulation was run to evaluate the improvement in efficiency. The efficiency of extracting power from the wind farm was 30% more than that from the individual turbine.

with a heat engine consuming hydrogen to generate 10 W of power. Another work by Herrault et.al [13] utilizes a 6.35 mm diameter turbine rotating at 20,000 rpm to generate 0.8 mW of power. J.L Steyn [15] analyzed a motor that can be paired with the heat engine to operate at 55,000 rpm generating 20 mW of power. Frechette et.al [16] describes the use of a 4.2 mm diameter rotor at 15,000 rpm to generate 0.5 mW of power. Iizuka et.al [17] describes a 3 mm diameter turbine rotating at 58,000 rpm to generate 6.2 mV of power.

In all the published literature on VAWT, there are no turbines which utilize wind velocities in the order of a few mm/s from natural winds with turbines smaller than 1 cm in diameter to generate power. In the present work, we designed micro turbines which are of dimensions in micro meter range and developed a scheme to increase the efficiency of energy harvesting taking inspiration from the movement of fish in schools. Aiding the energy harvesting by patterned flow synergized by placement of turbines in a configuration, we have increased the efficiency of energy capture from the wind. We have obtained a 30% increase in efficiency of energy capture from the wind farm as compared to an individual turbine. The scheme is adaptable to propel micro/nano nanorobots.

2. Design and simulation:The efficiency of a turbine is defined

by the ratio of power extracted from the turbine to the power available in the wind and is termed the power coefficient of the turbine. The power coefficient Cp has a maximum theoretical value of 16/27 = 0.593 termed as the Betz limit [3], and

1. Introduction: A  wind turbine  is a device that

converts  kinetic energy  from the  wind into electrical power. Today’s wind turbines are manufactured in a wide range of vertical and horizontal axis types and are arranged in large arrays known as  wind farms which are becoming an increasingly important source of  renewable energy. Among the different types, two most commonly found arrangements are horizontal axis and vertical axis turbines [1].

Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) have the main  rotor  shaft and  electrical generator  at the top of a tower, and must be pointed into the wind. On most horizontal wind turbine farms, a spacing of about 6-10 times the rotor diameter is often upheld. However, for large wind farms distances of about 15 rotor diameters should be more economically optimal [1].

Vertical-axis wind turbines  (or VAWTs) have the main rotor shaft

arranged vertically. One advantage of this arrangement is that the turbine does not need to be pointed into the wind to be effective. Another advantage of VAWT’s is the simpler construction and consequent improvement in reliability of the turbine. Recent research by Dabiri et.al [2] suggests that vertical wind turbines may be placed much more closely together as long as an alternating pattern of rotation is created allowing blades of neighboring turbines to move in the same direction as they approach one another.

Miniaturization of VAWT’s has shown promising results for energy harvesting and is a very promising result for harnessing energy to propel micro/nano robots. Micro/Nano robots are more propitious to fly or swim [18-23]. In this context, a design based on miniaturized, micro turbines utilizing surrounding wind flow speeds can generate large amounts of power. A.H. Epstein et.al [12, 14] used a turbine 1 cm long paired

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large scale wind turbines can approach this level of performance while at the same time achieving very high mechanical-to-electrical conversion efficiency. Miniaturized energy harvesters are expected to have lower Cp values, primarily because of design and fabrication constraints associated.

The tip speed ratio (T.S.R) of the turbine is defined as

Miniaturization of VAWT’s has shown promising results for energy harvesting and is a very promising result for harnessing energy to propel micro/nano robots. Micro/Nano robots are more propitious to fly or swim [18-23]. In this context, a design based on miniaturized, micro turbines utilizing surrounding wind flow speeds can generate large amounts of power. A.H. Epstein et.al [12, 14] used a turbine 1 cm long paired with a heat engine consuming hydrogen to generate 10 W of power. Another work by Herrault et.al [13] utilizes a 6.35 mm diameter turbine rotating at 20,000 rpm to generate 0.8 mW of power. J.L Steyn [15] analyzed a motor that can be paired with the heat engine to operate at 55,000 rpm generating 20 mW of power. Frechette et.al [16] describes the use of a 4.2 mm diameter rotor at 15,000 rpm to generate 0.5 mW of power. Iizuka et.al [17] describes a 3 mm diameter turbine rotating at 58,000 rpm to generate 6.2 mV of power.

In all the published literature on VAWT, there are no turbines which utilize wind velocities in the order of a few mm/s from natural winds with turbines smaller than 1 cm in diameter to generate power. In the present work, we designed micro turbines which are of dimensions in micro meter range and developed a scheme to increase the efficiency of energy harvesting taking inspiration from the movement of fish in schools. Aiding the energy harvesting by patterned flow synergized by placement of turbines in a configuration, we have increased the efficiency of energy capture from the wind. We have obtained a 30% increase in efficiency of energy capture from the wind farm as compared to an individual turbine. The scheme is adaptable to propel micro/nano nanorobots.

2. Design and simulation:

The efficiency of a turbine is defined by the ratio of power extracted from the turbine to the power available in the wind and is termed the power coefficient of the turbine. The power coefficient Cp has a maximum theoretical value of 16/27 = 0.593 termed as the Betz limit [3], and large scale wind turbines can approach this level of performance while at the same time achieving very high mechanical-to-electrical conversion efficiency. Miniaturized energy harvesters are expected to have lower Cp values, primarily because of design and fabrication constraints associated.

The tip speed ratio (T.S.R) of the turbine is defined as

𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇 𝑠𝑠𝑇𝑇𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑇𝑇𝑟𝑟 = Velocity of tip of blade Velocity of wind stream. = 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣×𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑟𝑟

𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣 𝑣𝑣𝑜𝑜 𝑤𝑤𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑣𝑣𝑎𝑎𝑠𝑠

The T.S.R is related to efficiency and the optimum value of T.S.R varies with the shape of the turbine.

For a single turbine, we considered a design of a three blade Savonius wind turbine [4] due to its simplicity and ease of fabrication. Savonius turbines work based on a difference in drag on either side of the blade. Test results have shown that the Savonius scaled-down wind turbines with three airfoils perform better than the turbines with two or four blades when the other parameters are kept the same for all three turbines [4].

For simulation purposes, the design parameters considered are tabled in Table 1

The T.S.R is related to efficiency and the optimum value of T.S.R varies with the shape of the turbine.

For a single turbine, we considered a design of a three blade Savonius wind turbine [4] due to its simplicity and ease of fabrication. Savonius turbines work based on a difference in drag on either side of the blade. Test results have shown that the Savonius scaled-down wind turbines with three airfoils perform better than the turbines with two or four blades when the other parameters are kept the same for all three turbines [4].

For simulation purposes, the design parameters considered are tabled in Table 1

Table 1 : Design Parameters

Diameter of shaft 20µm

Radius of blade 200µm

Diameter of turbine 800 µm

Thickness of blade 20µm

Height of turbine 100 µmThe model of three blade Savonius

turbine was simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics 4.4 using a 2-D fluid-static interaction model. Additional conditions added were Inlet, outlet and a rigid connector to allow free rotation about the shaft. Boundary conditions used were a wind velocity of 0.028 m/s for a volume flow of air = 5.6. The mesh used was free triangular with automatic remeshing enabled with the condition for remeshing set at quality lesser than 0.05. A Time Dependent study was set up for 6s with strict time marching and the segregated solver was used. The maximum number of iterations per step was set to 100 and the absolute tolerance was set to with a relative tolerance of 0.01. Torque and power were calculated from the pressure distribution obtained which is tabulated

in Table 2.

Table 2: Results from Simulation of Single Turbine

Starting Torque generated 15 pNmAverage Torque generated 0.099 pNm

Angular velocity 10.05 rad/sAverage power 0.995 pWPower in wind stream 2.6 pWCp 0.385T.S.R of turbine 0.014

A graph is then plotted of the torque obtained at each instant of time as shown in fig 2. The torque curve smoothens as the turbine enters steady state. After a time of 2 seconds, the torque stabilizes about an average torque of 0.099pNm with a very small variation. A high starting torque of 15pNm is also obtained. Figure 3 shows the position of a point on the edge of the turbine with respect to change in time and shows the slow stabilization of the turbine.

Next, a wind farm of turbines was configured for simulation taking a cue from fish schools. The configured arrangement is based on the arrangement of shed vortices in the wake of schooling fish. These shed vortices form a reversed Karman vortex street in the wake of the fish [2]. While vortex formation does not occur in the micro domain, simulations are conducted to verify whether the arrangement results an increase in efficiency and the extent of impact. The positions of the vortices in Fig 2 are the locations of the turbines.

Fish in schools typically swim with Fish in schools typically swim with 𝑏𝑏𝑎𝑎 ≅ 0.3 and 𝑐𝑐

𝑏𝑏 ≥ 2 [2]. In consideration of these ratios, the configured turbine farm design was interrogated for the following parameters

• 𝑎𝑎 = 1200µ𝑚𝑚 = 1.5𝐷𝐷

• 𝑏𝑏 = 800µ𝑚𝑚 = 1𝐷𝐷

• 𝑐𝑐 = 1600µ𝑚𝑚 = 2𝐷𝐷

Where

2a is the downstream distance between 2 turbines of the same line

2b is the lateral distance between 2 turbines

2c is the lateral distance between lines of similar rotating turbines

D is the diameter of the turbine = 800µ𝑚𝑚 for our design

The configuration of turbine farm is shown in Fig 3.

Figure 5: The wind farm configuration

With simulation conditions being exactly the same as in the case of a single turbine, we obtained average torque and angular velocity over the 6 second period and calculated the power obtainable and Tip speed ratio of the turbines in the wind farm. The obtained results are shown in table 3. We also calculated the power Coefficient of the wind farm as a whole as tabulated in table 4

2400

µ𝑚𝑚

1600 µ𝑚𝑚

In consideration of these ratios, the configured turbine farm design was interrogated for the

following parameters � a = 1200µm = 1.5D � b = 800µm = 1D � c = 1600µm = 2D

Where

2a is the downstream distance between 2 turbines of the same line2b is the lateral distance between 2 turbines 2c is the lateral distance between lines of similar rotating turbinesD is the diameter of the turbine = 800µm for our designThe configuration of turbine farm is shown in Fig 3.

With simulation conditions being exactly the same as in the case of a single turbine, we obtained average torque and angular velocity over the 6 second period and calculated the power obtainable and Tip speed ratio of the turbines in the wind farm. The obtained results are shown in table 3. We also calculated the power Coefficient of the wind farm as a whole as tabulated in table 4

3. Discussion:The power requirements for

several micromotors are in the vicinity of a few pNm [5] which are interesting and promising being in the vicinity of requirements for propulsion of micro/nano robots. The wind farm presented in the work easily generates the required power at a wind speed of 0.028. The increase in Cp and T.S.R indicates an increase in the efficiency of the capture of energy from the wind. The peak Cp of a savonius based turbine is around 0.15 in the macro domain and is usually achieved at a T.S.R of around 0.79 [6]. The increase in Cp to approximately 0.385 due to miniaturization and 0.5 in configuration indicates a possible avenue for the further development of energy harvesting devices.

Comparative analysis with a 2 cm diameter turbine [7] operating at a much higher wind speed of 10m/s which produces a power of 4.3mW indicates the much higher efficiency of energy capture in the present method. The efficiency gains increase with farm size [2], this can be leveraged to utilize large wind farms in the above mentioned configuration to maximize the energy

Table 1 Design Parameters

Diameter of shaft 20µm Radius of blade 200µm Diameter of turbine 800 µm Thickness of blade 20µm Height of turbine 100 µm

The model of three blade Savonius turbine was simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics 4.4 using a 2-D fluid-static interaction model. Additional conditions added were Inlet, outlet and a rigid connector to allow free rotation about the shaft. Boundary conditions used were a wind velocity of 0.028 m/s for a volume flow of air = 5.6𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚3. The mesh used was free triangular with automatic remeshing enabled with the condition for remeshing set at quality lesser than 0.05. A Time Dependent study was set up for 6s with strict time marching and the segregated solver was used. The maximum number of iterations per step was set to 100 and the absolute tolerance was set to 5 × 10−4 with a relative tolerance of 0.01. Torque and power were calculated from the pressure distribution obtained which is tabulated in Table 2.

Figure 1: Simulated velocity plot

Table 2: Results from Simulation of Single Turbine

Starting Torque generated 15 pNm Average Torque generated 0.099 pNm Angular velocity 10.05 rad/s Average power 0.995 pW

Fig. 1 : Simulated velocity plot

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Power in wind stream 2.6 pW Cp 0.385 T.S.R of turbine 0.014

A graph is then plotted of the torque obtained at each instant of time as shown in fig 2. The torque curve smoothens as the turbine enters steady state. After a time of 2 seconds, the torque stabilizes about an average torque of 0.099pNm with a very small variation. A high starting torque of 15pNm is also obtained. Figure 3 shows the position of a point on the edge of the turbine with respect to change in time and shows the slow stabilization of the turbine.

Figure 2: Torque on turbine

Fig. 2 : Torque on turbineFig. 4 : Vortex formation behind a fish

school

Figure 3: Position of point on turbine with respect to time

Next, a wind farm of turbines was configured for simulation taking a cue from fish schools. The configured arrangement is based on the arrangement of shed vortices in the wake of schooling fish. These shed vortices form a reversed Karman vortex street in the wake of the fish [2]. While vortex formation does not occur in the micro domain, simulations are conducted to verify whether the arrangement results an increase in efficiency and the extent of impact. The positions of the vortices in Fig 2 are the locations of the turbines.

Figure 4: Vortex formation behind a fish school

Fig. 3 : Position of point on turbine with respect to time

Fish in schools typically swim with 𝑏𝑏𝑎𝑎 ≅ 0.3 and 𝑐𝑐𝑏𝑏 ≥ 2 [2]. In consideration of these ratios, the configured

turbine farm design was interrogated for the following parameters

• 𝑎𝑎 = 1200µ𝑚𝑚 = 1.5𝐷𝐷

• 𝑏𝑏 = 800µ𝑚𝑚 = 1𝐷𝐷

• 𝑐𝑐 = 1600µ𝑚𝑚 = 2𝐷𝐷

Where

2a is the downstream distance between 2 turbines of the same line

2b is the lateral distance between 2 turbines

2c is the lateral distance between lines of similar rotating turbines

D is the diameter of the turbine = 800µ𝑚𝑚 for our design

The configuration of turbine farm is shown in Fig 3.

Figure 5: The wind farm configuration

With simulation conditions being exactly the same as in the case of a single turbine, we obtained average torque and angular velocity over the 6 second period and calculated the power obtainable and Tip speed ratio of the turbines in the wind farm. The obtained results are shown in table 3. We also calculated the power Coefficient of the wind farm as a whole as tabulated in table 4

2400

µ𝑚𝑚

1600 µ𝑚𝑚

Fig. 5 : The wind farm configuration

Figure 3: Position of point on turbine with respect to time

Next, a wind farm of turbines was configured for simulation taking a cue from fish schools. The configured arrangement is based on the arrangement of shed vortices in the wake of schooling fish. These shed vortices form a reversed Karman vortex street in the wake of the fish [2]. While vortex formation does not occur in the micro domain, simulations are conducted to verify whether the arrangement results an increase in efficiency and the extent of impact. The positions of the vortices in Fig 2 are the locations of the turbines.

Figure 4: Vortex formation behind a fish school

velocity. The output from the turbines can

be further improved by using a shield to prevent oncoming fluid from impacting the turbine and is the subject of further study. The efficiency gains due to the wind farm can be increased by using a larger farm [2]. A study can also be performed on the changes that can be made to the pattern due to increase in laminar nature of the flow due to miniaturization and increase in efficiency is possible by optimizing distances between turbines. The increase in efficiency of Savonius turbines at this scale also indicates a new avenue of utilizing this scaling to maximize power output. In the present work, it is shown by simulation that The Cp of the wind farm approaches the Betz limit at values that are close to the most optimally designed macro-scale HAWT’s.

4. Conclusion:In this paper, we have designed

and simulated the power output from a miniaturized VAWT from slow moving wind with a wind speed of 0.028 m/s. We calculated the coefficient of performance of the micro turbine to be 0.385 which is higher than the 0.15 of large sized Savonius turbines.

Further, we simulated the power output from a wind farm consisting of 8 turbines arranged in a configuration based on the vortex formation behind a fish school. The results from this simulation indicate a rise in coefficient of performance of the wind farm from 0.385 to 0.5 which approaches the Betz limit.

The usage of micro turbines to generate power for wobble micromotors in the range of a few pW is possible from free flowing wind of 0.028 m/s. The results are promising to design a similar scheme for propulsion of individual and swarm of micro/nano robots which are propitious to flying/swimming.

References1. O. Dabiri, “Potential order-of-magnitude

enhancement of wind farm power density via counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays (2011)”, J. Renewable Sustainable Energy , 043104

2. Robert W Whittlesey, Sebastian Liska and John O Dabiri,“Fish schooling as a basis for vertical axis wind turbine farm design.”, doi: 10.1088/1748-3182/5/3/035005.

3. D.A. Howey, A. Bansal, A.S. Holmes, “Design and performance of a cm-

Table 3 : Results for individual turbines

Average Torque (pNm)

Average Angular velocity (2π rad/s)

Average power (pW)

T.S.R (Tip speed ratio)

Turbine 1 0.239 1 1.5 0.08

Turbine 2 0.235 1.5 2.2 0.134

Turbine 3 0.051 3 0.96 0.269

Turbine 4 0.024 2 0.3 0.179

Turbine 5 0.0387 4 0.972 0.359

Turbine 6 0.017 1 0.1 0.08

Turbine 7 0.0001 0.2 1.2e-4 0.0179

Turbine 8 0.049 1.7 0.52 0.152

Table 4 : Results for wind farm

Power in wind flow 13.1pW

Power from wind farm 6.55pW

Cp 0.5

harvested from winds and suitable for micro/nano robots.

The advantage of using a Savonius turbine is the generation of large

torques in place of angular velocities making it suitable for application in the micro domain where it is harder to generate the torque and not the angular

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scale shrouded wind turbine for energy harvesting”, Smart Mater. Struct. 20 (2011) 085021 (12pp), doi:10.1088/0964-1726/20/8/085021

4. Rashidi Majid et al. “The effect of number of blades on the performance of helical savonius vertical-axis wind turbines”

5. Anita M. Flynn, Lee S. Tavrow, Stephen F. Bart and Rodney A. Brooks ,“Piezoelectric Micromotors for Microrobots”, Available at http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a234423.pdf

6. M.A. Kamoji, S.B. Kedare, S.V. Prabhu ,“Experimental investigations on single stage, two stage and three stage conventional Savonius rotor”, International Journal of Energy Research, DOI: 10.1002/er.1399

7. A. Bansal, D.A. Howey, and A.S. Holmes, “Cm-scale air turbine and generator for Energy harvesting from low-speed flows” Published in TRANSDUCERS 2009 - 2009 International Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, DOI: 10.1109/SENSOR.2009.5285378

8. J.-L. Menet,“A double-step Savonius rotor for local production of electricity: a design study,”, in Renewable Energy 29(11):1843-1862  ·  September 2004,   DOI: 10.1016/j.renene. 2004.02.011

9. P.N. Shankar, “Development of vertical axis wind turbines.” Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences Section C: Engineering Sciences March 1979, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp 49-66

10. Wilson RE, Lissaman PBS.” Applied Aerodynamics of wind power machines, Research Applied to National Needs” GI-41840, Oregon State University, 1974.

11. Kacor petr, misak Stanislav, & Prokop Lukas “Modification of construction

design of vertical axis wind turbine”, Annals of DAAAM for 2011 & Proceedings of the 22nd International DAAAM Symposium, Volume 22, No. 1, ISSN 1726-9679 ISBN 978-3-901509-83-4, Editor B. Katalinic, Published by DAAAM International, Vienna, Austria, EU, 2011

12. A.H. Epstein et al, “Micro-heat engines, gas turbines, and rocket engines”, 28th Fluid Dynamics Conference, http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.1997-1773 available at http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.1997-1773

13. Florian Herrault, Chang-Hyeon Ji, Seong-Hyok Kim, Xiaosong Wu and Mark G. Allen “A microfluidic-electric package for power mems generators”, Published in:IEEE 21st International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2008. MEMS 2008.

14. A.H. Epstein, et al “Power mems and microengines”, published in IEEE International conference on Solid State Sensors and Actuators, 1997. TRANSDUCERS ‘97 Chicago., 1997 International Conference on  (Volume:2 ), doi: 10.1109/SENSOR.1997.635209

15. J. L. Steyn, S.H. Kendig, R. Khanna, T.M. Lyszczarz, S.D. Umans, J.U. Yoon, C. Livermore, J.H. Lang “Generating electric power with a mems electroquasistatic induction turbine-generator”, Published in:18th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2005. MEMS 2005., doi 10.1109/MEMSYS.2005.1454004

16. Luc G. Fréchette, Steven F. Nagle, Reza Ghodssi, Stephen D. Umans, MartinA. Schmidt, Jeffrey H. Lang, “An electrostatic induction micromotor supported on gas-lubricated bearings” published in 14th International conference on Micro Electro Mechanical

Systems, 2001. MEMS 2001, doi: 10.1109/MEMSYS.2001.906535

17. Akane Iizuka, Minami Takato, Masato Kaneko, Tatsuya Nishi, Ken Saito, Fumio Uchikoba , “Millimeter Scale MEMS Air Turbine Generator by Winding Wire and Multilayer Magnetic Ceramic Circuit”, Modern Mechanical Engineering, 2012, 2, 41-46, http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/mme.2012.22006

18. Nain, Shivani, and N. N. Sharma. “Propulsion of an artificial nanoswimmer: a comprehensive review.”  Frontiers in Life Science  8.1 (2015): 2-17.

19. R. Majumdar , J. S. Rathore and N. N. Sharma, “Simulation of swimming nanorobots in biological fluids” in Proc 4th Int. Conf. Auton. Robots Agents, pp. 79-82, 2009

20. K. Deepak, J. S. Rathore, and N. N. Sharma, “Nanorobot propulsion using helical elastic filaments at low Reynolds numbers,” Journal of Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 11009, 2011.

21. Kotesa, R. S., J. S. Rathore, and N. N. Sharma. “Tapered Flagellated Nanoswimmer: Comparison of Helical Wave and Planar Wave Propulsion.”BioNanoScience 3.4 (2013): 343-347.

22. Rathore, J. S., and N. N. Sharma. “Engineering nanorobots: Chronology of modeling flagellar propulsion.” Journal of Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine 1.3 (2010): 031001.

23. Rathore, Jitendra Singh, Rwitajit Majumdar, and Niti Nipun Sharma. “Planar wave propagation through a tapered flagellated nanoswimmer.”  IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology 11.6 (2012): 1117-1121.

About the Authors:Mr. Sreekant Damodara received B.E (Hons.) in Manufacturing Engineering from Birla Institute of

Technology &Science Pilani. He carried out his undergraduate thesis project in Indian Institute of Technology Madras with Ashis Microfluidics research group and has worked with the group for an year afterwards as a research assistant. His current research interests are in the applications of microfluidics, particularly in droplet-microfluidics, bio-microfluidics and energy harvesters.

Prof. N. N. Sharma is currently Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Director School of Automobile, Mechanical & Mechatronics”, at Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ. He was a faculty in Mechanical Engineering Department at BITS Pilani for over 18 years. Dr. Sharma specialized in Robotics and was a part of team which developed ‘ACYUT’, the humanoid from BITS. He has 3 Patents (published), over 80 technical papers in high impact factor journals and peer reviewed National and International conferences, around two and half dozen invited/keynote talks in India and abroad and with ten funded projects from nodal agencies like DBT, UGC, CSIR-CEERI, NPMASS and Industries. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Artificial Intelligence – Are we digging our own Graves?

Sanjay Bhatia SAP Architect, USA

I recently read somewhere that if Auto Industry has grown at the Silicon Valley Pace, our cars would have been giving 200000 miles per gallon by now….

Bill Gates had reportedly said some time back that if GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 miles per gallon.

I do not know if above are true or not and I am not claiming to have done any research on it….But the point taken!! Nothing has grown faster, better and smaller than our “Computers” or so called “Machines which the human being created to do intelligent work”…

No other pieces have changed the face of earth in its 4 billion year history than the Human Race has. The last 100 years have been lightening changes and I have so far not found an appropriate word to describe what has happened in last 15 years…While writing this article, I was flying from Houston to Mumbai and must have passed thru 4 time zones, crossed 2 oceans, 3 continents and about 15 countries airspace while this article was finally finished..Who could imagine this thing would be possible 40 years back?

While better and intelligent machines are welcome in every way as innovation and continuous improvement is the way of life and that is how it should be, the question is – where does this race stop?

Smaller is Better –I remember in 1995 during a

computer class while I was studying Masters in Management Studies from Bombay University, my professor said he has been teaching Computers since 70s and he had used machines which was bigger than the class we were sitting in…..This was still 90s and Google was not born yet and we were using relatively smaller but much less

efficient computers then…today if we compare a smart phone to the computer of 70s, I think even my 4 years old daughter would laugh at me for calling the 70s machine as computer…… Earlier you needed to be a Genius or a Rocket Scientist to use a Computer….now even a 2 year old kid can help himself on a smart phone and at least enjoy photos and videos….

See Fig. 1 – a smart phone is billions times smaller than computer of 70 but at least a trillion times faster, smarter and better…

Anything exponential if

uncontrolled, incorrect and in wrong direction can not only be dangerous but have fatal potential…Big bang theory is one whose final impact is still unknown.

See Fig. 2 – How an earlier computer Mouse looked and difficult to use and now a sleek, wireless and ergonomically better computer mouse….frankly we don’t even need it since most of machines are “Touch Screen” now….

Artificial IntelligenceAs the name suggests, any Non

Human, Non god created object which is intelligent enough to think or act

Fig. 1 : Smart phone vs Computer of 70s

Fig. 2 : First Mouse Vs Latest Mouse

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based on its thinking (program) may fall under “Artificial Intelligence”. While AI is considered to be a very highly complicated stuff involving robotics or super computers. To me even an “Alarm Clock” which is programmed to buzz or make noise on a required time (when the hour and minute hands reach the programmed spot) is an Artificially Intelligent Machine. Wikipedia defines “AI is the  intelligence  exhibited by machines. In  computer science, an ideal “intelligent” machine is a flexible  rational agent  that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at an arbitrary goal.[1]  Colloquially, the term «artificial intelligence» is likely to be applied when a machine uses cutting-edge techniques to competently perform or mimic «cognitive» functions that we intuitively associate with human minds, such as «learning» and «problem solving»”.

The intelligence is given to the machine by programming the logical steps that the machine is expected to encounter and how it should behave or take decisions in those circumstances. The underlying assumption here is that the so called Intelligent Machine shall never encounter any situation not envisioned in its program and therefore the “Intelligence” can be limited or controlled. But is it really true?

Flying Example – It took a human being about 1900

years to learn flying but in the next just 63 years, human being reached the nearest Celestial Object – Moon. Wright brothers flew the first prototype of aero plane in 1904 which could only fly less than 200 feet distance….However in

next 63 years, humans built a machine which could fly 3 humans nonstop for a distance of 2 lacs+ kilometers, explore moon in their controlled space suits and land them safely on earth…..See Fig. 3 comparing first flight with most sophisticated aero planes of today.

The machine reaching moon in 1967 had a combined computer memory of 4 MB at that time, Today an average smart phone has an in built memory of 32-64 GB…No wonder 4 countries including India have been able to take their space shuttles into Mars Orbit. All these super sophisticated space shuttles, where a command takes 12 minutes to reach and execute from earth, are “Thinking on their own, observing things which no human being have ever seen and taking smart decisions”….The fact that Mangalyaan have been flying for more than 365 days successfully signifies beyond doubt that AI is real and it’s the future.

Exponential Age – We have recently seen so many

technologies coming from nowhere and changing the centuries old concepts and business processes….The trend is going to continue and will become faster, bigger and impact more people than ever. Software and AI will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years. Uber is just a software tool and they don’t own any cars but still the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties. Now you can get legal advice from IBM Watson within seconds with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy by humans.

We all have been hearing about self driven cars and the wonderful inroads being made by Apple and Google…..This will completely shake the car industry and may force the auto insurance industry to disappear completely within few years as the cars will be intelligent enough to self drive and cause less accidents….Already many millions miles of successful live road test drives have been completed on busiest and most complex roads of the world….I heard recently on radio that trillions of bites of data is sent to the car computers thru its sensors every second and computers are taking write decisions while driving the cars at 80 miles per hour speed.

The race goes on and on and draws millions of people into it willingly or unwillingly…..I guess people do not have choice to be in it anymore……every change, good for some and bad for some people finds its way into people’s lives…

Fig. 3 : Comparing first flight vs. Most Sophisticated Aero planes

Fig. 4

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Dangers of AI – We have seen umpteen number

of Hollywood, Bollywood and Tollywood movies wherein the Thinking Machines have gone in wrong directions and have mis used their super intelligence against their inventors and tried to control them…while each movie in the end shows human spirit triumphing over machines. It’s really a scary thought that if it happens in reality do we really stand a chance to fight the machines?

This may sound weir and funny by scientific angle…But remember that New York times called “Landing on Moon” as “Biggest Joke of Century” when Robert Goddard floated the rocket idea in 1920….Less than 50 years later, they corrected their error when 2 men walked on moon and came back safely. [Fig. 4]

Just imagine how much your cell phone know about you……Before 2007 and the birth of smart phones, we were using phones for talking and computers for emails, records, chatting and banking etc….The two devices were not really integrated for all practical purposes and were two stand alone objects keeping the critical data separate from each other. Now with emergence of smart phones, cloud technology etc, everything is integrated. Cell phones today store all our information from contacts, friends, emails, bank accounts – their login ids and passwords and all websites that we are surfing etc….so it practically knows everything about its owner…..and smart phone is already a thinking machine with so many features….what if something goes intentionally wrong? Do we have enough safeguards in place to control the situation?

Absolute Power can corrupt minds as we have seen in history so many dictators acquiring great military powers and misusing it for their own benefit, thus causing a great danger to the very existence of human race. Crores of people had to sacrifice their lives for no fault of theirs when some powerful leaders forced World War II and 7 years of non stop fighting. The world witnessed the first real destroying power of science in the form of Atom Bombs towards the end of world war. The leadership at that time was wise

About the Author

Mr. Sanjay Bhatia [CSI-1161672] is a SAP solution Architect working in USA. Besides working for top consulting companies and advising many Global 15 clients on their ERP implementation, Sanjay has created 4 ERP Apps and filed 1 Patent and 4 Copyrights in USA. He recently created Mobile App “WaterSoldier” for water conservation and is in the process of copyrighting and launching in India. He can be reached at [email protected].

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enough to put intelligent controls around it and thus save itself from the destruction. As Einstein famously said – “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. Hopefully that situation would not be witnessed at least by our generation.

Taking lessons from absolute power situations, the world moved towards democracy which brings the wise balance of power and ensures power gets distributed over many institutes and ultimately people decide who they want as rulers and administrators.

Drawing parallels to AI now, do we have those safeguards in place? And I think the bigger question is – “Who places or ensures the safeguards” and where….

Web is a boundary less world and it is so difficult to control the research, innovation and most importantly its direction. The role of controllers and administrators is all the more critical with every passing day. If we look at our history, the last 100 years have been significantly different and most producing one…going deeper, last 20 years, especially after emergence of computers and internet have been really exploding….we have seen Microsoft, Apple, Google and most recently Face book completely changing the way we live, earn and connect….It’s not a surprise as human race is setting

a perfect example of “Leveraging” its knowledge and past learning and increasing the pace of its future innovation. The leverage will continue in future and soon the completely independent thinking machines would become an absolute reality. If we can have bad and selfish thinking leaders in the past out to destroy the human race, what is the guarantee that few machines would also not go that route?

I am all for AI and truly believe in improvement and betterment of technology but at the same time would strongly advice strong controls, legislation and most importantly the will in all the technological and political leadership to regulate the research. All players involved in AI – researches, corporates, political parties and end users should come together and work towards a common cause. There should not be any AI race to outpace each other but to work hand in hand. That will bring the true benefits of AI. No matter who first puts a self driven car on road – Google or Apple or “GooPple” but it should be an accident free and smart car.

References – 1. Wikipedia.com2. NASA.GOV3. www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c25-mars-

orbiter-mission4. www.loc.gov

SEARCC AwardsSEARCC has instituted International Awards in three categories for outstanding professionals.:

• ICT Professional of the Year • ICT Researcher of the Year • ICT Educator of the Year

To find out more about the awards, please go to reimagination16.acs.org.au/searcc/searcc-international-awards/. The closing date for nominations is midnight 31 July 2016 Australian Eastern Standard time. CSI would select 6 nominations out of the applications. Please send your nominations to Prof. Anirban Basu, President CSI at : [email protected] or [email protected] by July 16, 2016 clearly stating the category of the award in the subject line.

Members can also apply individually by paying nomination fee of $125 AUD by midnight 31 July 2016 Australian Eastern Standard time.

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Stream Control Transmission ProtocolThe Origin of Multihoming

Anurag Jagetiya C. RamaKrishna Asstt. Professor, Department of IT, Professor, and Head, Department of CSE NITTTR, Chandigarh MLVTEC, Bhilwara

Multihoming is the ability of today’s mobile handheld devices to access Internet through their several active network interfaces viz. Wi-Fi, 3G, and Ethernet simultaneously. Researchers have come up with many solutions on transport and network layer for past 40 years. Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), Mobile IP, Level 3 Multihoming Shim Protocol for IPv6 (Shim6), Host Identity Protocol (HIP), and Multi-Path TCP (MP-TCP) are some of the most novel protocols submitted to IETF in this direction. SCTP was the first standard multihomed transport layer protocol designed to address many shortcomings of conventional TCP. SCTP was first standardized by IETF in 2000 in RFC 2960 and upgraded by RFC 4960. SCTP was first incorporated into FreeBSD 7.0. It was the first protocol to achieve multihoming capabilities and later on many amendments were added to enhance its features and capabilities.

Features of SCTPSCTP not only has multihoming

capabilities but also includes many advanced features not available in conventional TCP. SCTP is a reliable, message oriented (like UDP), and, full duplex protocol. It not only provides most of the features of TCP like flow & congestion control, ordered data delivery but also provides additional services like: Multihoming to thwart network layer failure, partial reliability to support real time applications, multi-streaming etc. [1] [2].

SCTP Resilience to TCP’s SYN Flooding Attack

In TCP, if a client sends an initial connection set-up SYN segment, then server responds by SYNACK segment, reserves entry in its state table and wait for client’s ACK. Therefore, if a malicious system, as shown in figure 1 persistently sends millions of connection requesting SYNs, then server will have to keep on sending SYNACKs. But, the malicious client is not confirming server’s SYNACK by its corresponding ACK. This may exhaust server’s state tables/ buffers and no space will be left for legitimate sessions. SCTP uses four way handshake mechanism to thwart against SYN flooding Denial of Service attack possible in TCP. Session setup in SCTP uses following four steps between client and server: � Client sends INIT chunk having

‘verification tag’ value.

� Server responds by INIT ACK with its own ‘verification tag’ and a ‘state cookie’.

� Cookie Echo: Client sends the state cookie back to server

� Cookie ACK: Final acknowledge from server to client. SCTP does not reserve any

resources for a new session without completing all the steps of four way handshaking. That’s why SCTP is resilient to flooding and masquerade attacks [1]. SCTP provides support to graceful close (shutdown) or ungraceful close (abort) by the request of the user. But, unlike TCP, SCTP doesn’t provide half open state where one side can send while the other has requested the end. In SCTP, association will break down if any of the peer requests shut down.

Fig. 1 : SYN Flooding attack in TCP

SCTP Multi StreamingIn TCP, sender side uses sequence

numbers to all the segments sent

to receiver, these segments choose different paths to reach at the destination. Therefore, receiving side need to re-arrange these segments to deliver it to the destination process. Now, suppose a segment is lost in the way, then, receiver side, while waiting for the lost segment, keeps all the received segments in its buffer. Thus, application layer process, in spite of being ready to absorb data has to wait while transport layer reassembles the arrived segments. This situation is referred as head of line blocking in TCP. In situations where segments are sequential in nature, it becomes imperative to follow strict ordering. But, head of line blocking becomes unnecessary in many other situations where segments are carrying independent data [3]. SCTP provide much finer grain control to such situation with the help of multi-streaming i.e., a sending application can specify a stream number out of available 65535 streams in SCTP. Therefore, a lost packet in stream N will not cause head of line blocking in stream M. Even SCTP can behave as UDP in situation where messages are not inter-dependent and can be sent independently. So the received message is stored in the receiving side buffer of transport layer and can be processed immediately by the application layer process.

SCTP MultihomingMultihoming was primarily

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designed for the environment requiring high application availability like Signaling System 7 (telephony signaling protocol). Later, IETF standardized SCTP as general purpose transport protocol because SCTP’s multihoming feature was attractive in wireless environment [4]. SCTP ensures strong association between two endpoints of a connection and each of that may be reached by one or more transport layer address (IP addresses). During initial connection setup of SCTP multihomed environment, both the end point exchanges a list of available transport layer address (IP addresses). Then, both the end points define a primary path to exchange data. Besides, this primary path, SCTP endpoints also keep track of alternative paths as shown in Fig. 2 [5]. Then, SCTP sender usually uses the same path or destination address until being instructed by the application layer to change the path. If, at any point of time, primary destination is found inactive by SCTP’s periodic heartbeat messages, SCTP may switch to alternate destination address and retransmit the message [1].

SCTP transport address contains SCTP port number and one specific IP address. A SCTP association is defined by the couple of transport layer addresses on both the sides. Following example illustrates an association having single interface on client side and two interfaces on server side:

{ [192.0.0.1: 80] [10.1.1.1, 10.1.1.2: 7010] }

Here 192.0.0.1: 80 is the transport address of Endpoint#1

and 10.1.1.1, 10.1.1.2: 7010 is the transport address of Endpoint#2 where two IP addresses are bound to a single

SCTP port number.

In fact, an SCTP endpoint may contains multiple transport addresses that each contains one unique IP address and share the same SCTP port number. Thus a SCTP port endpoint has exactly one port number. SCTP works at transport layer, thus provides a host centric approach. And, no intermediate devices are involved in this process. Therefore, in order to use multihoming features, both the communicating parties need to be agreed upon this service.

Failure Detection in SCTPFailure detection is a vital feature

in multihomed environment, both the parties, involved in communication should have the capability to detect failure on time. A failure indicates that the packets are unable to reach the destination on the current path. There can be several possible reasons of a failure viz. configuration issues at routers, dis-functional intermediate device, etc. In order to detect failure, SCTP uses heartbeat mechanism and status of data traffic. Heartbeat is a request and response based periodic phenomena in which one SCTP end point sends a heartbeat request message to another. Counter side sends a heartbeat acknowledgement to respond the request and indicates no failure. Both the end points of SCTP maintains error counter for each destination. This error counters increments if retransmission of a chunk occurred or the end point

doesn’t receive the response of heartbeat. When this value exceeds the protocol parameter ‘path.max.retrans’, sender assumes that this destination address of the peer is not reachable and the end point chooses another destination address which was earlier confirmed as reachable.

Challenges to adopt SCTP as a Multihomed Protocol

The purpose of multihoming feature is to simultaneously use multiple paths effectively to improve reliability and throughput. While, SCTP is primarily designed to support retransmission and failover i.e. it has been found that it doesn’t support other multihoming requirements viz. load sharing, load balancing, transport layer handover etc. [6]. SCTP derived its congestion control algorithms from TCP which are not designed keeping multihoming in mind. Congestion control in SCTP is more complicated as different destination addresses use different data paths between the two end points. Therefore, separate congestion control will be required for both the paths. Sender has to keep track of a separate congestion control parameter for each of the connection at destination. The parameters reserved for congestion control are gradually released if not used by a connection for a long time. For network compatibility, there are issues with various middle boxes (especially NATs) that are unaware of SCTP and consequently end up blocking it. For application compatibility, applications need to actively choose to use SCTP, and with the deployment issues, very few choose to do so [7].

Actually, most of the existing applications are primarily designed to run with either TCP or UDP. In order to use the Multihoming capabilities of SCTP, existing software have to be modified i.e., application need to be aware with the presence of SCTP. However, several APIs are defined for application to create an SCTP socket [5]. Summarizing, SCTP can only provide the ability to recognize multiple paths so that connection can be shift from one to another during a fault. But, it doesn’t provide facility to use multiple paths simultaneously to transfer data [8]. SCTP is not interoperable with TCP, and Fig. 2 : SCTP Multihomed Environment

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that poses a risk in the mind of people who want to implement SCTP. Due to this reason, developers are also less likely to develop their application that works with SCTP.

Extensions added to SCTPTo equip legacy applications

with fault tolerant capabilities of SCTP multihoming, a translating mechanism of Shim layer that translates application layer system calls to TCP into corresponding calls to SCTP has also developed. This procedure remains transparent to application layer and the Shim layer backward compatible to TCP [9].

Later, a Dynamic Address Reconfiguration (DAR) extension is added in SCTP to make it mobility enabled transport layer protocol. DAR extension provides transport layer handover management in SCTP. With DAR extension SCTP endpoints can dynamically add or delete an IP address to an ongoing association and request to set the primary destination during active SCTP association [10]. This extension was required because many modern computers allow for dynamic addition and deletion of network cards a.k.a. hot-pluggable cards. In fact, in IPv6, a provider can renumber a network, so in order to take advantage of this new configuration, transport association must be restarted. This extended version of SCTP with DAR is referred as mSCTP by IETF and standardized in RFC 5061 [11].

References1. R. Stewart, “Stream Control

Transmission Protocol,” RFC 4960, Sept. 2007

2. T. Daniel Wallace, Abdallah Sham., “A Review of Multihoming Issues Using the Stream Control

About the Author

Mr. Anurag Jagetiya [CSI - 01081789] is an Assistant Professor at MLV Government Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara (Rajasthan). He is pursuing M.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from NITTTR, Chandigarh. His research interests are Computer Network, Cyber Security, and ICT in Education. He can be reached at [email protected].

Dr. RamaKrishna Challa is Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science at NITTTR, Chandigarh. He has more than 90 papers to his credit in many international and national journals and conferences. His research interests are Computer Networks, Wireless Networks, Cryptography & Cyber Security, E-Learning, and Cloud Computing.

Transmission Protocol,” IEEE communications surveys & tutorials, vol. 14, no. 2, second quarter 2012, pp. 565-578

3. Stewart, Randall, Michael Tüxen, and Peter Lei. “SCTP: What is it, and how to use it?” (2008)

4. Budzisz, L., Ferrus, R., Casadevall, F., Amer, P., ”On Concurrent Multipath Transfer in SCTP-Based Handover Scenarios,” Communications, 2009. ICC ‘09. IEEE International Conference on, Year: 2009, PP: 1 - 6

5. Shinta Sugimoto, Brian E. Carpenter “A Comparative Analysis of Multihoming Solution,” Nippon Ericsson K.K., Ericsson Research Japan, 2006

6. Guanhua Ye; Saadawi, T.N.; Myung Lee, “IPCC-SCTP: an enhancement to the standard SCTP to support multi-homing efficiently Performance,” Computing, and Communications, 2004 IEEE International Conference, Year: 2004, pp. 523 - 530

7. A. Ford, C. Raiciu, M. Handley, S. Barre, J. Iyengar “Architectural Guidelines for Multipath TCP Development,” RFC 6182, March, 2011

8. K. Alexandros, Kostopoulos, A.; Warma, H.; Leva, T.; Heinrich, B.; Ford, A.; Eggert, L.,”Towards Multipath TCP Adoption: Challenges and opportunities, Next Generation Internet (NGI),” 6th EURO-NF Conference, Year: 2010, pp: 1 - 8

9. Ryan W. Bickhart, Ryan W., ”Transparent TCP-to-SCTP translation Shim layer” (Unpublished master’s thesis). Delaware Univ Newark Dept Of Computer And Information Sciences, 2005

10. Łukasz Budzisz et.al, ”On Concurrent Multipath Transfer in SCTP-based handover scenarios”

11. R. Stewart et al., “Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) Dynamic Address Reconfiguration,” RFC 5061, Sept. 2007

A R T I C L E

Benefits for CSI members: Knowledge sharing and Networking � Participating in the International, National, Regional chapter events of CSI at discounted rates � Contributing in Chapter activities � Off ering workshops/trainings in collaboration with CSI � Joining Special Interest Groups (SIG) for research, promotion and dissemination activities for selected domains, both

established and emerging � Delivering Guest lecturers in educational institutes associated with CSI � Voting in CSI elections � Becoming part of CSI management

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• Coverstory

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A Model for Determining Software Product Performance Maturity

Rajiv Thanawala Mohan Jayaramappa Sreejith Balakrishnan Head, Product Experience Center Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services of Excellence, Tata Consultancy Services Bangalore Kochi

Performance is a vital characteristic of any software product. From an end-user’s perspective, it is important that a software product has all the required functional capabilities. However, that is not enough. How quickly it performs those functionalities and how optimally it uses system resources are also equally important. Today, software applications and products are not just judged by how fully they cover all functional requirements. Performance is an important driver that also determines a product’s success.

When building a software product, optimal performance is ensured only by consciously adopting the best practices of performance engineering throughout the development life-cycle. It is important to identify a measure of adherence to such best practices throughout the software product development life cycle. This is essential to ensure that the product development process is aligned to meet end-user performance expectations. An appropriate performance maturity model can be one reference for deriving such a measure of adherence.

Over the last few years, we in Performance Engineering team have assessed performance of about 50 software products and solutions developed in house in TCS. From our experience of working with varied teams using heterogeneous technology stacks and catering to varied business verticals, we noticed that if timely recommendations on maturity of performance are provided to product development teams throughout the development life cycle, they tend to develop products that have optimal performance.

While we gave such feedback based on our experience, we realized

that it is better to enable product development teams and empower them to be independent. We therefore trained product development teams in using specific performance assessment tools. In addition, it was essential to provide a reference model providing best practices for conducting specific performance engineering activities at specific stages throughout the development life cycle. We searched for such a reference model and assessed existing performance assessment methods and guidelines. Our search revealed that there were no maturity models available for gauging a degree of adherence to performance best practices. The existing assessment methods lack quantifiable metrics for an objective review of performance quality and also lack increasing levels of performance maturity, using which one can strive for continuous improvement of performance.

Since we did not find any model that matched our requirement, we developed our own Performance Maturity Model (PMM). Based on the degree to which performance engineering best practices are established, PMM classifies software product performance into one of the following four levels: (Refer Fig. 1 - Performance Maturity Model)

A software product, for which no performance management planning is done and no activities are carried out to incorporate performance characteristics, can be classified as Level 0.

Level 1 (Basic): The product’s performance

expectations are clearly stated and tested on relevant infrastructure.

Level 2 (Oriented): In addition to meeting Level 1

requirements, a product’s code and

databases are tuned appropriately.

Level 3 (Optimized): In addition to meeting Level 2

requirements: � The product is architected and

designed as per performance requirements.

� Design principles and design patterns suited to performance are incorporated. Response time requirements are traced to technology component level. There is a provision for incorporating performance controls.

Level 4 (Leadership): At level 4, the product meets

Level 3 expectations and in addition, its performance is benchmarked against industry standards / competing products in the same space.

The Key Performance Areas (KPAs) identified for determining these four maturity levels are:

1. Work load characterization Identify key transactions and distribute load among these transactions. The characterization can be one of the following: � ad-hoc � based on industry standards � based on experience

2. Performance Oriented Architecture and DesignExperience based performance characteristics are incorporated into the product architecture. Design principles and patterns are incorporated specifically for performance.

3. Optimized Code

4. Tuned Database

5. Performance testing The product is tested on specified

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About the Authors:

Benchmarking Against Industry Standards

Workload Characterization

Performance Oriented Architecture & Design

Code Optimization

Database Tuning

Performance Testing

Performance Maturity Model

Level 1BASIC

Level 2ORIENTED

Level 3OPTIMIZED

Level 4LEADERSHIP

Key Performance Attributes (KPAs)

infrastructure and network bandwidth. Performance results are in accordance with the prevalent performance standards.

6. Benchmarking against industry standards / competitionThe maturity level of a product is

decided based on assessment for each of these six KPAs.

Using the model, performance assessment of a product is done as follows:

1. Enlist product performance expectation for each of the KPAs through a pre-assessment questionnaire.

2. Calculate weighted average for each of the KPAs and arrive at a level specific maturity score. Feedback is provided to product development team to further improve the product’s performance maturity.We have used this PMM based

technique for product performance assessments for about 50+ products. Usage of a standardized assessment methodology has helped improve our products’ performance.

References1. Evaluating Performance Maturity

Level of an Application. Patent US 9158663 B2. Inventors : Koshy P Vaidyan, Rajiv Thanawala, Sreejith Balakrishnan.

n

Fig. 1 : Performance Maturity Model

Mr. Rajiv Thanawala has played varied roles in his 26 years of IT industry experience. He currently heads the Product Experience Center of Excellence at Tata Consultancy Services. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mr. Mohan Jayaramappa, [CSI-01100457] is a senior consultant in Tata Consultancy Services based out of Bangalore. He heads the Product Trustworthy Centre of Excellence that is responsible for ensuring software product Performance & Security. He has overall experience of 27 years in the IT industry and has worked in various positions and technologies. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mr. Sreejith Balakrishnan has 14 years of IT industry experience and works for Tata Consultancy Services, Kochi. He is part of the Performance Engineering team, in the Product Trustworthy Centre of Excellence, that is responsible for ensuring Software Performance. He can be reached at [email protected].

INNOVATIONS IN IT

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Real-time Unified Process Dashboard Mr. Manoj Soman

Sr. Manager - Innovation, Tech Consulting & Solutions, BPS

In today’s fast moving world, right information made available at near real-time in right context would help leadership teams take right decision at right-time before things swirl out of control.

ContextIf you had ever got chance to visit

any operations floor (Business Process Operations), chances are high that you would find simiar view there.

Agents (Individual processing business transactions) are processing transactions following SOP (Standard Operating Practice) and SMEs (Subject Matter Expert) are engaged in helping agents solve specific queries. Agents are periodically walking to white-boards kept on floor to write operational information about transactions being processed.

MIS reporting teams pull data from multiple business applications at the same time send excel trackers to operations managers for collecting information about live transaction being processed by agents. Operations managers send those trackers to team leads and team leads send same to agents over emails. Agents fill up required information in excel trackers while processing transactions, send updated one back to team leads on email, team leads send same back to operations managers and then back to MIS teams.

MIS teams collate all this information collected from agents as well as downloaded from multiple business applications into excel, massage this information (clean, cleanse, map, transform, aggregate, group, rollup etc.) to workout excel based dashboard which is then shared with leadership teams which could be at scheduled time during a day, every day (EOD) or every week.

By the time leadership teams (operations and business) discuss status of operations, “real” picture on operations floor could be contrasting !

And “contrasting” can have different flavours here, going from “not-good” (about to breach SLAs (Service Level Aggrements) on few transactions), “bad” (alreay breeched

SLAs on multiple transactions) to “out of control” (deep red on multiple SLAs with potential financial loss / penalty) !!

Business ProblemA task or a transaction which

gets executed on Business Operation (operations) floor is typically a multi-step task involving multiple IT systems and multiple stakeholders. Stakeholders can be service provider, customer, and customer’s customer. And transaction could be either orders, cases, issues, requests, queries etc.

A transaction processing requires combination of multiple system-to-system and / or human-to-system interactions and follows lifecycle of multiple milestones or statuses from start to end. Such a complex combination of interactions lead to challenges in measuring and tracking efficiency and effectiveness of business process.

Business process operation involves working with stringent timelines governed by SLA contracts. Missed SLA target could mean delay in processing which could lead to dissatisfaction to customer or potential financial penalty. Hence every bit of time saved is critical as it could translate to improvement in customer satisfaction score or gain monetary benefits. This calls for having complete control and visibility into transactions being processed on the operations floor.

Existing form of dashboards used on operations floor which involve Excel-based dashboards as well as white boards do not provide ‘right-time’ visibility as well as doesn’t provide ‘complete lifecycle’ view of transactions being processed operations team. This leads to challenges in tracking & monitoring transaction processing on operations floor.

This calls for a solution, which would be automatically & frequently refresh showing operational information at right-time as well show complete

life-cycle-view of transacations.

Solution‘BAM Lite (Business Activity

Monitoring)’ helps enable measuring and tracking efficiency and effectiveness of business processes.

‘BAM Lite’ Solution enables Business Operation as well as Customer leadership team with a dashboard with complete visibility in transaction processing and progress of their respective milestones with a right-time view as per business requirement.

Solution provides one unified screen / view (UI – User Interface) showing process information spanning across multiple systems, human actions & milestones / statuses.

Solution provides multiple views to address operational challenges:

» Dashboard View

» Traceability View

» KPIs (Key Perfornance Indicators) View

3 Dashboard ViewThe process maps shown in

dashboard view (figure 1 below), provide complete visibility of transaction lifecycle showing all processes, tasks or milestones through which a transaction flows from start to end.

3 Traceability ViewTraceability view (figure 2 below)

shows ‘Control panel view’ depicting all transactions being processed by the team currently. For every transaction, all milestones across lifecycle of transactions are shown along with visual indicators enabling SLA tracking

3 KPIs ViewFor any process, BPS Service

Provider Operation as well BPS Customer leadership team is concerned with monitoring and meeting targets for operation KPIs. KPIs view (figure 3 below) helps leadership team in tracking KPIs in near real-time enabling better control on operations.

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Fig 1 : Dashboard View Fig 2 : Traceability View Fig 3 : KPIs View

Solution DetailsSolution is a web based application

using web sockets for real-time updates.

Solution leverages BAM feature of underlying BPM (Business Process Management) engine for process flows excluding process execution part and hence being termed as “BAM Lite” !.

Solution: � Has Server component which

queries BPMN (Business Process Model & Notation) compliant process flows to draw process flow image on presentation layer (User Interaface)

� Has Presentation layer (User Interface) which renders process flow images received from server component along with data

� Data is nothing but process instance counts which are rendered on top of process flow image showing how many instances of transactions for respective process are being

executed currently � Presentation layer is auto-

refreshed at scheduled frequency with server component pusing data to presentation layer using web sockets

� Web sockets approach provides much better web experience than standard pooling method employed where in presentation layers requests data from server at scheduled frequency

� Process image flows are “pixel-perfect” which are drawn from BPMN compliant process flow models

� Provides hot-pluggable process flows feature which allows users to just drop a BPMN compliant process models to designated directory and then system promptly reads process models to draw “pixel-perfect” process image and create a dashboard

programmatically at runtime with no manual efforts involved for configuration and coding.

Concluding Thoughts

‘BAM Lite’ would prove to be one of the effective tool in BPS Service Provider Operation as well BPS Customer leadership team’s armor enabling better control over operations and improving chances of avoiding SLA breach and subsequent monetary penalties!

References

[1] TCS Patent Filed Application – 4596/MUM/2015 (Ind), 15/068219 (US), 16159608.5 (EPO) – ‘O2A Dashboard Lite in Telecom BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) operations for Process Tracking & SLA Management’ – Mahesh Kshirsagar, Manoj Soman, Naresh Balasubramanian

INNOVATIONS IN IT

Mr. Manoj Soman [Sr. Manager - Innovation, Tech Consulting & Solutions, BPS] is currently working as Consultant in Technology Consulting team in BPS helping BPS customers identify operational inefficiencies and evolve automation opportunities using technology solutions. His interests include Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Big Data and IoT. He can be reached at [email protected]

About the Authors:

Memorandum of Understandingbetween Computer Society of India and Springer Nature

valid upto 31st December 2020Requirements : � Formulate strong Technical and Advisory Committees comprising of national and international experts (from renowned

Universities/corporates of repute) in the focus area of proposed conferences � Build communities around conferences � Define steps to check plagiarism � Focus on stringent peer-review process involving all the members mentioned in the Committees and by allowing sufficient

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Ms. Suvira Srivastav, Associate Editorial Director, Computer Science & Publishing DevelopmentSpringer India, 7th Floor, Vijaya Buiding, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, India.

Ph: +91-11-45755884, Email: [email protected].

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CSI Communications | June 2016 | 41

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Book Title: Usability and Human - Computer Interaction - A Concise Study

Author: S A KelkarISBN: 978-81-203-5162-2Price: ` 495/-Publisher: PHI learning Private Limited, New Delhi

The comprehensive introduction to Usability engineering and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is one of the distinctive books with its extensive exposure and thorough approach in this area. This book is accessible in a way that it covers the entire usability lifecycle that makes it useful for students, as well as for anyone who is interested in learning more about user interfaces.

This book covers many disciplines relevant to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) and provides a comprehensive guide through all of them. Author addresses both technical and socio-psychological parts of HCI in understandable manner for both beginners and professionals in the field. The textbooks on Human Computer Interaction, technology and applications have not addressed HCI’s multidisciplinary foundations effectively. 

In each chapter the focus is on a different scientific analysis and approach with an identical format. The SWOT analysis for Indian IT industries and Human-Computer interactions is given in chapter 1. Chapter 6 demonstrates many practical examples on how to apply usability principles in web design, and what is the positive effect on visitors consequently.

The chapters emphasize on both developmental processes and techniques involved in HCI. Chapter 9 focuses on the use of sound in interfaces which is the process to reach out to the maximum number of people with

their design requirements. The chapters includes Interface Development Process, Interface Design Guidelines as well as the topics are elaborated with diagrams and flowcharts that are relevant to learn concepts of HCI, and to give a foundation in HCI theory, which will help to make the learning process more instructive. The information required during development lifecycle on which method to use at different stages is included, along with thorough information on usability test and the issues related to universal usability.

The book gives emphasis on methods which can be implemented immediately by developer, and guide readers throughout the development lifecycle.

The book was thorough, all statements and facts were properly supported by footnotes, referencing to an attached  appendix  for supplemental information. The content in all the three appendixes is seen as additional reference information which is supporting the main material within the book.

Review by:

Ms. Preeti P. VaidyaAssistant Professor, Department of Computer Engineering, K K Wagh Institute of Engineering Education & Research, Nashik, Maharshtra, India

CSI Adhyayana tri-monthly publication for students

Articles are invited for July-Sept. 2016 issue of CSI Adhyayan from student members authored as original text. Plagiarism is strictly prohibited. Besides, the other contents of the magazine shall be Cross word, Brain Teaser, Programming Tips, News Items related to IT etc.

Please note that CSI Adhyayan is a magazine for student members at large and not a research journal for publishing full-fl edged research papers. Therefore, we expect articles should be written for the Bachelor and Master level students of Computer Science and IT and other related areas. Include a brief biography of Four to Five lines, indicating CSI Membership no., and for each author a high resolution photograph.

Please send your article to [email protected].

For any kind of information, contact may be made to Dr. Vipin Tyagi via email id [email protected].

On behalf of CSI Publication Committee

Prof. A. K. NayakChief Editor

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CLUES

CrossWord Durgesh Kumar Mishra Chairman, CSI Division IV Communications Professor (CSE) and Director Microsoft Innovation Center, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Technology,

Indore.

Test your knowledge on Robotics

Solution to the crossword with name of first all correct solution provider(s) will appear in the next issue. Send your answer to CSI Communications at email address [email protected] and cc to [email protected] with subject: Crossword Solution – CSIC July 2016 Issue.

ACROSS1. Rotational movement of Robot2. A circuit board3. Robot’s coordinate system7. A smooth continuous function to avoid

jerks in motion8. A speed reducer9. Robot configuration10. An adjustable hoisting machine11. A mechanism used to trigger motion12. A rotation platformDOWN1. An input device for robot4. Platform for small-scale robotic

experiments5. Support for manipulator arm6. A device which perform energy

transformation

Solution for June 2016 Crossword

We are overwhelmed by the response and solutions received from our enthusiastic readers

Congratulations!All nearby Correct answers to May 2016 month’s crossword received from the following reader: Dr. Sandhya Arora, Assistant Professor, Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune

1 A

U2 O N T O L O G Y

O

C H U N K 4 G 5 B

O6 P R U N I N G

M A G

O N R

U U A

S L M

A 8 L9 H A U R I S T I C

I S10 P R O T O T Y P 11E

Y L F

I U

S Z

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BRAIN TEASER

Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.in

Rashid SheikhAssociate Professor, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Technology, Indore

DID YOU KNOW?

Indian Monsoon Forecast by Robots!!!To get better Monsoon forecast India and UK jointly started a project to use underwater robots and overhead aircrafts in the Bay of Bengal region. The robots will be dropped off Indian ships to analyze ocean conditions and the aircrafts will measure atmospheric circulations, and synthesize data. India’s ministry of earth sciences and UK’s University of East Anglia (UEA) will work on the project.

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F R O M C H A P T E R S & D I V I S I O N S

AHMEDABAD CHAPTER

Computer Society of India, Ahmedabad Chapter and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) organised a seminar on “ICT solutions for Digital and Smart Gujarat” in association with, on Monday, 16th May 2015. Infocomm International (Global ICT Association) was the partner to the event. Prime objective of the seminar was to advance the dialogue between various stakeholders with a view to promote Digital and Smart India Campaigns as well as support to major ICT driven initiatives of the government of Gujarat.

The seminar was addressed by Shri Dhananjay Dwivedi, IAS, Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Government of Gujarat, Prof. Rajnikant Patel, Honorary Director, Graduate School of Smart Cities Development (GSSCD) Gujarat Technological University, Mr. Jonathan Seller, Senior Director of Development (Asia/Pacific), InfoComm International, Mr. Richard Tan, Executive Director, InfoComm Asia.

Followed by that, a panel discussion on ‘Building Digital &amp; Smart Gujarat - Emerging partnerships and business opportunities in ICT’ was organized. The panelists included Mr. Siraj Siddique, Head – IT, Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad, Mr. Jayesh Solanki, Chairman, Computer Society of India, Ahmedabad Chapter Mr. Sunil Shah, Chairman, Gujarat Innovation Society, Mr. Kaushik Pandya, Founder President, Federation of IT Association of Gujarat, Mr. Vivek Ogra, Vice Chairman and Director, GESIA IT Association, Mr. Jonathan Seller, Mr. Shinoj Nair, General Manager, ICT, GIFT City. With speakers convening from government and the industry, the seminar brought together the public and private sectors to further identify solutions for moving towards a digitally smarter Gujarat.

The seminar was attended by key government officials, eminent industry leaders, young entrepreneurs and technical experts. The discussions revolved around ICT Solutions and Government’s vision for Digital and Smart Gujarat; Emerging partnerships and business opportunities in ICT; and increased involvement of Industry and achieving faster growth.

JABALPUR CHAPTER

A meeting of CSI Jabalpur Chapter was organized on 29th June 2016. Dr. Maneesh Choubey - Chairman, Shri I. S. Ruprah - ViceChairman, Dr. Santosh K. Vishwakarma -

Secretary, Shri Vivek Agrawal – Member (NC), Prof. R. K. Anand, Shri Ashish Mishra, Shri Rohit Kosta attended the meeting. The committee planned for various technical and professional activities under the banner of CSI Jabalpur Chapter. It was also decided that more number of student’s branches will be open in the city and membership drive will be increased. A web page of CSI Jabalpur Chapter will be developed.

CHENNAI CHAPTER

The Chennai Chapter of CSI organised a presentation on “Life Career Fundas : LCF 101” by Mr. Deepak Mirza, Recipient of President’s “Swarn Kamal” Award on 20th Apr 2016. It was a motivational presentation with a focus on the Importance of Self-Esteem, a ‘’basic Who-am-I’’ Self-Query, Work, Instructions and Agreements, Professional Esteem, Giving ‘’something’’ back. It also dealt with briefly on use of Checklists, Decision Making, Success-Failure Responses, Light Existence, and related. The speaker highlighted that by presenting a certain approach to our Fears, Sins, Guilt which is related to Imperfections like unworthy actions, habits, obsessions; it may add value to many of us who fail to Enjoy and maximize OUR lives, The approach presented has been remedial. The session may contribute to an understanding of ‘’OUR’’ preferences and help us enjoy them.

The Chennai Chapter of CSI organised a presentation on “Communication Systems in Indian Railways: Today and Tomorrow” by Mr. R. Baskaran, Group General Manager, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, Chennai on 11th May 2016. The speaker said that Indian Railways (IR) uses the communication systems broadly in the following three categories. – Operational Communication Systems;

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

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F R O M C H A P T E R S & D I V I S I O N S

Administrative communication systems; and Emergency communication equipment. He added that IR also uses Networked Passenger Information Systems and continuously putting a lot of effort in improving the technology to match the developments and growing user needs and demands. He mentioned that IR is fast adopting itself to most of the communication facilities which are getting shifted to IT based. Emails, Messaging, Social networks such as Facebook, WhatsApp are being extensively used now. While ERP is also getting implemented in phases, Internet of Things (IoT) is likely to be the future for all its operations. The presentation covered the various technologies which are in use, challenges faced in implementing and maintaining and the overall benefits derived by IR through Communication Systems.

On 4th Jun 2016, the Chennai Chapter of CSI organised a programme in which the book “Software Project Management” authored by Mr. S. Ramanathan, CSI Fellow and Past Hony. Secretary. Mr. S. Mahalingam, Fellow & Past President of CSI and Former Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director of TCS and Non-Executive Chairman, City Union Bank was the chief guest at the programme and formally released the book and spoke about the importance of Software Project management in the execution of complex and large projects and said that the book written in a simple language highlights various aspects of the project management with case studies and review questions to re-inforce the learning. After the release of the book, Mr. S. Ramanathan gave a presentation on “Managing Expectations - Essence of Software Project Management” in which he said that while the traditional wisdom defines project management as managing time, cost and resources to deliver the scope with the desired quality, the experience shows that customer expectations go beyond these and thus it is not sufficient if deliverables are fulfilled. He added that it is also important how it is delivered to meet customer expectations which bring in intangible parameters to measure the success of a project. The presentation also

covered what a project manager could do to address this challenge.

COIMBATORE CHAPTER

A review meet to discuss the activities under execution for CSI-2016 was held at Hotel Vijay Elanza, Coimbatore on Sunday, 25 June 2016. The meeting was attended by a large number of committee members including Chairs of various committees. The meeting was presided over by Mr. P. R. Rangaswami, Chair Organizing Committee. All the Committee chairs gave a detailed presentation on the activities done so far and plans for the coming months. Various suggestions were received from members to make the convention a landmark event. The meeting was followed by a photo session and lunch.

NASHIK CHAPTER

Computer Society of India, Nashik Chapter organized a program on Cost Effective ERP Solution SAP B1 for SME Sector on 3rd June, 2016 powered by Edel Tech Pvt. Ltd at Express Inn, Nashik. Mr. Diwakar Yawalkar welcomed Mr. Narahari Kulkarni, Edel Tech Pvt Ltd. Program was conducted for Small & Medium scale industries. It was very useful to understand SAP Business One. Mr. Mitesh Gandhi, Western Regional Head SAP India for SAP Business One and Mr. Rakesh Prasad, Technical Head SAP Business One, Indian subcontinent have given excellent coverage on SAP Business One. SAP team demonstrated, “How an organization can use SAP Business One for improving their efficiencies and in turn improve their bottom line”. During Q & A session Mr. Narahari Kulkarni and SAP team addressed participants questions. Few SAP Business users also shared their experience. The program was attended by 120 CEO, IT/EUC individuals, C-level strategists, CIO, CISO and IT Heads from various organizations.

Computer Society of India, Nashik Chapter organized a program on Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Awareness program on 10th June, 2016 in association with

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ISACA, Pune Chapter at Swagat, Kusumagraj Pratishthan, Nashik.

Mr. Girish Pagare in his introductory speech, explained need of CISA Program. Mr. Chandrashekhar Dahale felicitated speaker of the program Dr. Pravin Mulay. Dr. Pravin Mulay is a Risk Management, IT Governance and Process Professional, having 40 years of total experience. In his presentation, Dr. Pravin Mulay covered various topics including importance of CISA, CISA Job Practice Areas, CISA exam pattern and study plan. The program attended by industry persons and students of Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India (ICWAI).

TRIVANDRUM CHAPTER

The inaugural function of CSI Student branch at Baselios Mathews II College of Engineering, Sasthamcotta, was held combined with a Technical Talk on “New & Innovative Ideas as a part of your Academia” on 19th Feb. 2016.Mr. Sreekanth P. Krishnan, Chairman, CSI Trivandrum Chapter inaugurated the student branch. Mr. G Neelakantan, Immediate past Chairman CSI-Trivandrum Chapter, delivered a talk on “New & Innovative Ideas as a part of your Academia”. Dignitaries from the BMCE (Baselios Mathews II

College of Engineering) were present in the function.Computer Society of India, Trivandrum Chapter conducted a Two Day Workshop on ‘NS 3’ on 22nd and 23rd April 2016 at Mar Baselios College of Engineering & Technology, Nalanchira in association with Department of Computer Science, Mar Baselios College of Engineering & Technology. Prof. T. S. Pradeep Kumar from VIT Chennai was the faculty of the workshop. The workshop was attended by faculties and students from different Engineering Colleges.

VELLORE CHAPTER

CSI Vellore Chapter organized a one week Faulty Development Programme on “Latest Trends in Computer Science, IT and Research Directions “from 13-06-2016 and 18-06-2016 at VIT University. Mr. Charles Simson, Senior Business Analyst from Antuit India Pvt.Ltd, Bangalore covered Introduction internet of things, data analytics, data storage over cloud and statistical tools and applications with research directions. Around 50 CSI life members attended the workshop, organized by Prof. G. Jagadeesh and Prof. K. Govinda.

F R O M C H A P T E R S & D I V I S I O N S

Kind Attention: Prospective Contributors of CSI CommunicationsPlease note that Cover Themes for forthcoming issues are planned as follows:• August 2016 - Virtual Reality • Sept 2016 - Medical Image Processing • October 2016 - Bioinformatics

Articles may be submitted in the categories such as: Cover Story, Research Front, Technical Trends and Article. Please send your contributions before 20 July for August issue. The articles may be long (2500-3000 words maximum) or short (1000-1500 words) and authored in as original text. Plagiarism is strictly prohibited.Please note that CSI Communications is a magazine for members at large and not a research journal for publishing full-fl edged research papers.Therefore, we expect articles written at the level of general audience of varied member categories. Equations and mathematical expressions within articles are not recommended and, if absolutely necessary, should be minimum. Include a brief biography of four to six lines, indicating CSI Membership no., for each author with high resolution author photograph.Please send your article in MS-Word and/or PDF format to Dr. Vipin Tyagi, Editor, via email id : [email protected] with a copy to [email protected].(Issued on the behalf of Editorial Board CSI Communications)

Prof. A. K. NayakChief Editor

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

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F R O M S T U D E N T B R A N C H E S

REGION-I REGION-IV

ITS Engineering College, Greater Noida Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar

24-5-2016 – Student Branch Inauguration 6-5-2016 to 11-5-2016 - Prof Patnaik, Prof Pattanayak & Prof. Padhy during one week Workshop on Machine Learning for

Big Data Analysis (MLBDA-16)

REGION-V

Amrita School of Engineering, Bangaluru K S Institute of Technology, Bengaluru

20-5-2016 – Technical Talk on Behavior Drive Development 16-4-2016 – Guest Lecture on Joy of Learning Computer Networks

K S Institute of Technology, Bengaluru Anurag Group of Institutions, Hyderabad

19-3-2016 – participants during workshop on App Design Prototyping

16-4-2016 – Guest Lecture on Joy of Learning Computer Networks

Anurag Group of Institutions, Hyderabad PES Modern College of Engineering, Pune

4 to 7-5-2016 – students during workshop on Android Application Development

19-3-2016 – during Project Competition

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REGION-VI REGION-VII

MET BKC Institute of Engineering, Nasik VIT University, Vellore

13-06-2016 to 15-06-2016 – Dr Wani, Principal Felicitating Dr Sane, RVP-VI during FDP on Internet of Things

11-6-2016 – during one day workshop on How to Crack GRE

F R O M S T U D E N T B R A N C H E S

Call for NominationsCSI Young Talent Search in Computer Programming 2016

Selection of teams to represent India at SEARCC (South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation) International Schools’ Software Competition – 2016

To bring out problem solving and programming talents in school students Computer Society of India conducts a National Level School Students Software Competition every year. The winners will represent the country in the SEARCC International Schools’ Software Competitions

Eligibility : It is a team based competition. Each team will consist of 3 students. School Team members must be full-time students with age of 18 years or under, i.e. born on or after 1st January 1998

Format : The competition will be of two (2) hours duration, consisting of 4 problems using ONE of the Programming languages, viz., C or C++ or Java.

Entry fee : Rs.300/- per team

IMPORTANT DATES

Last Date for Registration of teams 20th July 2016

First Level Regional Competition a t 21 centres across the country 31st July 2016

National level Final Competition at Chennai 11th September 2016

SEARCC International Schools’ Competition 03rd – 06th November 2016

Competition details and registration form are available at http://www.csi-india.org/searcc.aspx

Further details, please contact

Computer Society of IndiaTM

Education Directorate, National HeadquartersC.I.T. Campus, 4th Cross Road, Taramani, Chennai - 600 113

Phone: +91-44-2254 1102 / 2254 1103 / 2254 2874 | E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. R. K. Vyas Prof. A. K. Nayak Coordinator Hon Secretary

Congratulations!Prof. M N Hoda, Chairman, Division 1 got elected as Member of IETE governing

body for the year 2016-19. CSI is proud for election of Prof. Hoda.

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• Coverstory

• Technical Trends

• Reserach Front

• Articles

• Innovations in IT

• Security Corner

• Practioner Workbench

• brain Teaser

• Chapter Reports

• Student branch reports

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Call for Proposals from CSI Student Branches to organize

National / Regional / State Level CSI Student Conventions

during the year 2016-17

Computer Society of India (CSI) organizes National, Regional, and State level Student Conventions annually, to enhance the awareness on technological developments and applications, and foster creative professional orientations among the academic community. The Conventions, held at Student Branches, offer excellent opportunities to the students to manifest their technical proficiency and prowess through paper presentations, discussions and extensive interactions with peers and pioneers.

CSI invites Proposals from Student Branches to conduct the National/Regional/State Level Student Conventions to be held during the academic year 2016-17 (April to March).

Criteria: The proposing Student Branch should be very active, with a track record of several CSI activities, and be in good standing through the years 2015-16 and 2016-17.

The proposals for convention will be evaluated, broadly based on the parameters given below:

a) Number of years of continuous valid Student Branch at the college (without break)

b) Average student strength over the past three years

c) Number, quality and level of activities at the student branch

d) Prompt submission of activity reports and financial accounts

e) Ability to attract good speakers from Industry

f) Availability of infrastructure and other resources

g) Financial strength and potential

h) Accessibility and other general conditions

Schedule: Regional & State Student Conventions: To be conducted before 30th November 2016

National Student Convention: To be conducted after 15th December 2016 and before 28th February 2017

All the National, Regional & State Student Conventions are to be completed according to the above schedule.

The CSI Student Convention Manual (Please see http://

www.csi-india.org/convention.aspx) describes the guidelines and norms to conduct the student conventions.

The Proposal: Interested Student Branches are requested to send electronic proposals in the prescribed format with all necessary data, including the information stated below.

a) Type of convention proposed: National/Regional/State level

b) Proposed dates (at least two days) – please indicate two sets of dates

c) A statement of case why the SB should be considered favourably for the proposed event

d) Signed undertaking by the Head of the Institution to provide all the required support (Document with scanned signature)

e) Name and contact details of the coordinator-designate for the proposed convention

How to send: The Student Branches may send the proposals in the prescribed format through the respective Regional Student Co-ordinator and Regional Vice President who may subsequently forward the proposals to the Hony. Secretary ([email protected]) and Vice President ([email protected]), with a copy to Education Directorate ([email protected]).

Timeline: Interested Student Branches may please send the proposals with all details through proper channel as explained above to reach CSI Education Directorate before August 20, 2016.

Selection: A Committee constituted by CSI, including the Honorary Secretary and Vice President, will assess the proposals to select the host institutions.

CSI Support: CSI extends partial financial assistance, in accordance with the availability of budgetary resources, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee. CSI also supports the publicity efforts for the Conventions.

Convention Helpline: CSI-Education Directorate shall be pleased to offer any information or help on the convention. Please do contact Mr. Gnanasekaran (email: [email protected] Mobile: 98403 41902) for any assistance.

Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra Prof. A. K. Nayak Vice President Hon Secretary

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Sanjay Mohapatra, Vice President, CSI & Chairman, Conf. Committee, Email: [email protected]

Date Event Details & Contact Information

JULY22-23, 2016

4th International Conference on Innovations in Computer Science & Engineering Venue: Guru NanakInstitutions Technical Campus, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad, Website: www.icicse2016.orgContact : Dr. H. S. Saini, [email protected], Dr. D. D. Sarma, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

AUGUST 18-19, 2016

International Conference on “Internet of Things”, Venue : APS College of Engineering, BangaloreContact : [email protected]

SEPTEMBER 16-17, 2016

2016 International Conference on Frontiers of Intelligent Computing: Theory and applications (FICTA), KIIT University, Bhubneswar. www.fi cta.inContact : [email protected]

OCTOBER 06-08, 2016

International Conference on “Computational Systems and Information Technology for Sustainable Solution [CSITSS-2016]” Organized by CSE & ISE & MCA - R.V. College of Engineering, Bengaluru -560059. www.rvce.edu.in;Contact : [email protected]; Ph: 080-67178183, 8180;

28-29, 2016 Third International Conference on Computer & Communication Technologies (IC3T - 2016) at DevineniVenkata Ramana & Dr. Hima Sekhar MIC College of Technology, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. http://www.ic3t.mictech.ac.in/Contact : Dr. S.C. Satapathy, 9000249712, [email protected], Dr. K. Srujan Raju, 91-9246874862, [email protected] Prof. Vikrant Bhateja, 91-9935483537, [email protected]

NOVEMBER11-12, 2016

International Conference on Advances in Computing and Data Sciences (ICACDS-2016). Proceedings by Springer CCIS/LNCS Organized by Krishna Engineering College (KEC), Ghaziabad. http://icacds2016.krishnacollege.ac.in/ Contact : Dr. Mayank Singh, [email protected]. Mob: 09540201130

National Conference on Smart And Innovative Technologies in Engineering And Sciences (SITES 2016) Gyan Ganga College of Technology, Jabalpur, MP. www.ggct.co.in Contact sites: [email protected]

18-20, 2016 2nd International Conference on Communication Control and Intelligent Systems, at GLA University, Mathura . www.gla.ac.in/ccis2016 Contact: [email protected]

22-25, 2016 Special session on “Smart and Ubiquitous Computing for Vehicle Navigation Systems” at IEEE TENCON 2016, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore (http://site.tencon2016.focalevents.sg/)Contact : Dr. P.K. Gupta [email protected], Prof. Dr. S. K. Singh [email protected]

DECEMBER08-10, 2016

CSI Annual Convention (CSI-2016): Theme: Digital Connectivity - Social Impact; Organized by CSI Coimbatore Chapter; Pre-Conference Tutorial on 7th Dec. 2016 Venue: Hotel Le MeridienContact : Dr. Ranga Rajagopal, Convener, 9442631004 [email protected]

CeBIT INDIA 2016 – Global Event for Digital Business in association with CSI Venue: BIEC, Bengaluru www.cebit-india.comContact : Mohammed Farooq, [email protected], +91 9004691833

22-24, 2016 Joint International Conference on Swarm, Evolutionary, and Memetic Computing (SEMCCO 2016)- 7th Edition & Fuzzy and Neural Computing (FANCCO 2016)- 6th Edition co-located with 1st International Conference on Smart Computing and Informatics (SCI-2016). Department of Computer Science and Engg, ANITS, Visakhapatnam, India. http://anits.edu.in/semfansci2016 Contact: Prof. Suresh Satapathy, [email protected], Mob.: 9000249712

23-24, 2016 8th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Network CICN-2016. Venue : Gyan Ganga Institute of Technology & Sciences, JabalpurContact : Dr. Santosh Vishwakarma [email protected]

FEBRUARY11-12, 2017

International conference on Data Engineering and Applications-2017 (IDEA-17) at Bhopal (M.P.),http://www.ideaconference.inContact : [email protected]

C S I CA L E N D A R 2 0 1 6 - 1 7

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Registered with Registrar of News Papers for India - RNI 31668/1978 If undelivered return to : Regd. No. MCN/222/20l5-2017 Samruddhi Venture Park, Unit No.3, Posting Date: 10 & 11 every month. Posted at Patrika Channel Mumbai-I 4th floor, MIDC, Andheri (E). Mumbai-400 093 Date of Publication: 10th of every month

- COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

- IT FOR SOCIETY

- SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

- NETWORK, COMPUTING &

INFORMATION SCIENCE

1234

Inviting papers in

emerging areas:

Important Dates- Submission of Manuscript 30th July 2016- Acceptance notification 15th Sep 2016- Camera ready paper 25th Sep 2016

Authors are invited to submit their original and unpublished work in the areas including but not limited to these areas.

INSPIRE. INNOVATE. MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

51st Annual Convention of Computer Society of IndiaIndiaDigital Connectivity – Social ImpactThe theme of the convention aims to draw the attention of academician, corporates, researchers, government and every stakeholder to help society navigate the impacts of the shifts to come. It aims to tap into talent and the passion of people who are already working on innovative solutions to various issues. Its objective is to bring out state of the art solutions to challenges related to Digital Connectivity that can...

Impact the economyImpact Life style of each citizenand ensure we build societies that are Happy Societies to live in, in a Digitally Connected World!!

Visit www.csi-2016.org for more details and tosubmit paperE : [email protected]

Contact : Third floor, Vyshnav Building,95A, Race course,Coimbatore 641018.P : +91 422 2200695E : [email protected]

Scan to visit website: www.CSI-2016.org

FINALCALL FOR PAPERS!

Convention Highlights

• High profile speakers from various industries and institutes of repute

• Numerous networking opportunities to convert your ideas into reality

• Selected papers to be

published in Springer CCIS series