Funded Projects

Intelligent Grasp Manipulation Technology Development in a Cobotics Framework Using Complex Manipulation

Notable Students

• Sayed Haider Mohammad Jafri (PhD submitted)
• Vandana Kushwaha (PhD submitted)
• Rayeesa Mehmood (PhD)
• Garvit Suri, Hardik Bhati, Ananya Agarwal, RIshi Gupta, Shubhang Singh, Surya Kant (BTech, 2023)

We create a world where every collection of festive gifts that you order, including the ones for your course instructors, will be specially hand-picked by robots from warehouses who would carry all the gifts in a shopping trolley to be packaged, labelled and delivered. We let the robots talk to each other for avoiding places where robots in big numbers are expected avoiding congestion, while we also let the robots cater to several hostellers at once who order limited quantities of the same items, repeated for all hostellers. We allow humans to talk to the robots for an expert advises.

Selected Publications

• H. Bhati, G. Suri, R. Kala, G. C. Nandi (2022) Simulation Aided Anticipatory Congestion Avoidance for Warehouses. In: 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 2022, pp. 2062-2067, Mexico City, Mexico.
• U. Kumar, R. Kala, G.C. Nandi (2023) Low-Cost Domain Adaptive Experience Based Localization for Autonomous Robots, In: Proceedings of the 2023 6th International Conference on Advances in Robotics, Article No. 11, pp. 1–6.
• R. Kalingeri, V. Kushwaha, R. Kala, G.C. Nandi (2023). Synthesis of Human-Inspired Intelligent Fonts Using Conditional-DCGAN. In: M. Tistarelli, S.R. Dubey, S.K. Singh, X. Jiang (eds) Computer Vision and Machine Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 586. Springer, Singapore, pp. pp 691–707.
• A. Gupta, V. Kushwaha, R. Kala, G. C. Nandi (2022) Estimating Depth Map of an RGB image using Encoders and Decoders, In: 2022 IEEE 9th Uttar Pradesh Section International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering, Prayagraj, India, pp. 1-7.

Safe Human-aware Robot Navigation in Warehouses

Notable Students

• Sayed Haider Mohammad Jafri (PhD submitted)
• Rayeesa Mehmood (PhD)
• Garvit Suri, Harshdeep Singh Pruthi, Ranveer Singh, RIshi Gupta, Shubhang Singh, Surya Kant, Ishneet Sethi, Alka Trivedi, Pranav Singhal; Mrinal Bhave, Rishika Agarwal (BTech, 2023)

Humans display strange behaviours when moving around that also depends upon the kind of company the human is currently keeping, and that of the surrounding humans. So walking in-between a group of girls gossiping could be the ultimate challenge, while it depends upon the group whether you follow the group, overtake it, or wait for it to cross before walking ahead.  Our robots observe the humans as they move, spot the more interesting ones, and predict their next moves. Our robots are also trained to operate amongst such humans in an amicable manner, and if they don’t the robots cry for human help which is used to train the model and write new papers.

Selected Publications

• I. Sethi, A. Trivedi, P. Singhal, M. Bhawe, R. Agarwal, R. Kala, G. C. Nandi (2022) Group-Aware Human Trajectory Prediction. In: 2022 IEEE 6th Conference on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), Gwalior, India, 2022, pp. 1-5.

Self-Learning Maps for Self-Driving Cars for Urban Scenarios

Notable Students

• Lhilo Kenye (PhD submitted)
• Rohit Yadav (PhD submitted)
• Prashant Rawat (MTech 2019)
• Mehul Arora, Ambuj Agrawal, Dhruv Agarwal, Mehul Arora, Ritik Mahajan (BTech 2021)
• Nikhil Mundra, Bhanu Bhandari (BTech 2020)

Looking at the lousy building in front of you, you know which place in the universe you are standing; a young lady tells you where you are standing, you happily marry the place location with the look with of the lousy building in front. The project solves this famous chicken-and-egg problem in robotics with a twist. What happens if the building owner re-decorates the building every year and a gang of visitors occlude your view? The project subtracts dynamic entities in traffic, looks at stronger semantic background entities, and notes the change in their positions/appearance with time.

Selected Publications

• L. Kenye, R. Kala (2022) Improving RGB-D SLAM in Dynamic Environments using Semantic Aided Segmentation, Robotica, 40(6), 2065-2090.
• L. Kenye, R. Kala (2022) Feature-Based Correspondence Filtering Using Structural Similarity Index for Visual Odometry, International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence 36(9): 2255013.
• L. Kenye, R. Kala (2022) An Ensemble of Spatial Clustering and Temporal Error Profile Based Dynamic Point Removal for visual Odometry, Multimedia Tools and Applications 81: 23259–23288.
• L. Kenye, R. Kala, (2023) Low-Cost Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Using Occupancy Grid, Place Recognition and Semantic Priors, In: 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Busan, Korea, Republic of, 2023, pp. 1083-1088.
• A. Agrawal, D. Agarwal, M. Arora, R. Mahajan, S. Beohar, L. Kenye, R. Kala (2022) SLAM and Map Learning using Hybrid Semantic Graph Optimization. In 2022 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED), pp. 731-736, Athens, Greece.
• L. Kenye, R. Palugulla, M. Arora, B. Bhat, R. Kala and A. Nayak (2020) Re-localization for Self-Driving Cars using Semantic Maps. In: Proceedings of the 2020 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC), Taichung, Taiwan, 2020, pp. 75-78.

SLAM for Extreme Weather Conditions

Notable Students

• Rohit Yadav (PhD Pursuing)
• Lhilo Kenye (PhD submitted)
• Varun Paturkar (navAjna Technologies Pvt. Ltd.)
• Tanuj Bordoloi (MTech 2021)
• VIshal Pani, Arpit Mishra, Naman Tiwari, Mehul Arora (BTech 2021)

Getting lost in stunning nature is cool, getting lost driving in rains or at the darker times of the day back from those places is not. Here we ensure that the self-driving car always knows where it is, even when nature has other not so friendly plans. A self-driving car knows its location based on what it sees, and when God changes the display settings, the car must know what and how to adjust.

Selected Publications

• V. Paturkar, R. Yadav, R. Kala (2024) Sequential visual place recognition using semantically-enhanced features, Multimedia Tools and Applications, DOI: 10.1007/s11042-023-17404-4.
• R. Yadav, V. Pani, A. Mishra, N. Tiwari, R. Kala (2023) Locality-constrained continuous place recognition for SLAM in extreme conditions. Applied Intelligence 53: 17593–17609
• R. Yadav, R. Kala (2022) Fusion of Visual Odometry and Place Recognition for SLAM in Extreme Conditions, Applied Intelligence 52: 11928–11947.
• V. Paturkar, R. Yadav, R. Kala (2024) Sequential visual place recognition using semantically-enhanced features. Multimedia Tools and Applications
• U. Kumar, R. Kala, G.C. Nandi (2023) Low-Cost Domain Adaptive Experience Based Localization for Autonomous Robots, In: 2023 6th International Conference on Advances in Robotics, Article 11, pp. 1-6, Ropar, India

Medical Cyber-Physical System for lifestyle diseases using Big Data Analytics

Notable Students

• Rohit Yadav (MTech 2018)
• Shivam Dixit (MTech 2019)
• Ashutosh Chandra (MTech 2020)

Just because the medical doctors started charging significantly higher in comparison to the more superior PhD doctors, some IT-savvy PhD doctors promised to make machines do the same job for free. Here we make low-data intensive machine learning models for the specific diseases whose patients could be found in local hospitals, and engines to suggest diseases from the symptoms that subjects face. And, like any international project, we do get to roam around selected parts of the world, if the sponsor succeeds in processing the papers on time.

Selected Publications

• S. Dixit, R. Kala (2021) Early detection of heart diseases using a low-cost compact ECG sensor. Multimedia Tools and Applications 80, 32615–32637.
• A. Chandra, R. Kala (2019) Regularised Encoder-Decoder Architecture for Anomaly Detection in ECG. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Information and Communication Technology, Allahabad, India.

Towards Socialistic Navigation of Robots and Virtual Robotic Agents Part I: 3D Tacking of People

Notable Students

• Vaibhav Malviya (PhD, 2023)
• Abhinav Malviya (PhD submitted)
• S.M. Haider Jafri (PhD submitted)
• Shivansh Beohar, Manav Vallecha (MTech, 2023)
• Sonaxi (MTech 2017)
• Arun Kumar Reddy K (MTech 2019)
• Tara Prasad Tripathy (MTech 2019)
• Abhinav Khare, Ritika Motwani, S. Akash, Jayesh Patil (BTech 2019)

If you do not hang around with sane friends, how can you hang around with rational robots in the future? Here we make robots that can move around in the same workspace as humans. We first stare at everybody walking around (even the guy who got too high after getting too low grades); get a sense in their walking patterns (which they cannot find themselves); and formally track and study innovative behaviors. We also make robots imitate humans walking around, and innovate when necessary.

Selected Publications

Learning:

• SMH Jafri, R. Kala (2023) Dynamic Head-on Robot Collision Avoidance Using LSTM. Neural Processing Letters 55: 1173–1208.
• SMH Jafri, R. Kala (2022) End-to-end human inspired learning based system for dynamic obstacle avoidance. Complex and Intelligent Systems 8: 5065–5086.
• M. Vallecha, R. Kala (2022) Group and Socially Aware Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning. In 2022 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED), pp. 73-78, Athens, Greece.
• A. Malviya, R. Kala, R. (2022) Learning-based simulation and modeling of unorganized chaining behavior using data generated from 3D human motion tracking. Robotica, 40(3), 544-569.
• S. Beohar, F. Heinrich, R. Kala, H. Ritter, A. Melnik (2022) Solving Learn-to-Race Autonomous Racing Challenge by Planning in Latent Space, In: ICML’22 Workshop on Safe Learning For Autonomous Driving.
• A. Khare, R. Motwani, S. Akash, J. Patil, R. Kala (2018) Learning the Goal Seeking Behaviour for Mobile Robots. In: Proceedings of the 2018 3rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems, IEEE, Singapore, pp. 56-60.

Heuristics and tracking:

• A.K. Reddy, V. Malviya, R. Kala, R (2021) Social Cues in the Autonomous Navigation of Indoor Mobile Robots. International Journal of Social Robotics, 13, 1335–1358.
• A. Malviya, R. Kala (2021) Social robot motion planning using contextual distances observed from 3D human motion tracking, Expert Systems with Applications 184:115515.
• V. Malviya, A. K. Reddy, R. Kala (2020) Autonomous Social Robot Navigation using a Behavioral Finite State Social Machine. Robotica 38(12): 2266-2289.
• V. Malviya, R. Kala (2023) Navigation with a Cooperative Social Robot for a Group of Visitors using Face Detection and a ‘Stop and Wait’Scheme. Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research 82: 1009-1021.
• V. Malviya, R. Kala (2023) Socialistic 3D tracking of humans from a mobile robot for a ‘human following robot’ behaviour. Robotica 41(5): 1407-1435.
• V. Malviya, R. Kala (2022) Trajectory Prediction and Tracking using a Multi-Behaviour Social Particle Filter, Applied Intelligence, 52, 7158–7200.
• A. Malviya, R. Kala (2023) Navigation with a Cooperative Social Robot for a Group of Visitors using Face Detection and a ‘Stop and Wait’ Scheme, Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research 82(10): 1009-1021
• U. Kumar, A. Banerjee, R. Kala (2020) Collision avoiding decentralized sorting of robotic swarm. Applied Intelligence 50: 1316–1326.

Traffic (co-funded in kind by NavAjna Technologies Pvt. Ltd.)

• R. Chandra, M. Mahajan, R. Kala, R. Palugulla, C. Naidu, A. Jain, D. Manocha (2023) METEOR: A Dense, Heterogeneous, and Unstructured Traffic Dataset with Rare Behaviors, In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 9169-9175, London, United Kingdom.
• A. Malviya, R. Kala, (2022) Risk Modeling of the Overtaking Behavior in the Indian Traffic. In 2022 IEEE 25th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), pp. 2882-2887, Macau, China.
• R. B. Jha, A. Rai and R. Kala (2021) Predictive Risk Analysis using Deep Learning in Indian Traffic. In: Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC), pp. 258-263.

Mission Planning using Sampling based Techniques

Notable Students

• S.M. Haider Jafri (PhD submitted)
• Venkat Beri (PhD left)
• Gaurav Pandey (MTech 2017)
• Abeer Khan, Diksha, Shelly, Surabhi, Sonal Gupta (BTech 2016)
• Sugandha Dumka, Smiti Maheshwari (BTech 2017)
• Akanksha Bharadwaj, Bishnu Kishor Sahu, Heena Meena, Priyanshu, Shradha Sharma, Neha Kumari, Siddhartha Sonker (BTech 2018)

The priciest treasure is not to get a domestic help who knows how to do all the work, the priciest treasure is a domestic help who knows when to do what work, given pages of related work given by all the flat mates. Given that the world is too focused on the former, we solve the latter problem. We make a team of robots decide which flat mate should be served beer first, what to do if that flat mate is away, which refrigerator does that beer come from, how to spy on other flat mates in-between, etc. And if it all goes well, hopefully robotic teams will be qualified enough to execute the instructions given by women, which may not always be mathematically possible.

Selected Publications

• R. Kala (2023) Mission planning on preference-based expression trees using heuristics-assisted evolutionary computation, Applied Soft Computing 136, 110090.
• R. Kala (2021) Multi-robot mission planning using evolutionary computation with incremental task addition, Intelligent Service Robotics 14:741–771.
• R. Kala (2020) Robot Mission Planning using Co-evolutionary Optimization, Robotica 38(3): 512 – 530.
• R. Kala (2019) Evolutionary Planning for Multi-User Multi-Task Missions, In Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Wellington, New Zealand, pp. 2689-2696.
• A. Bharadwaj, R. Kala (2019) Sensor based Evolutionary Mission Planning, In Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Wellington, New Zealand, pp. 2697-2704.
• R. Kala (2018) Dynamic Programming Accelerated Evolutionary Planning for Constrained Robotic Missions, In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Simulation, Modelling and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR), Brisbane, Australia, pp 81-86.
• R. Kala, A. Khan, D. Diksha, S. Shelly and S. Sinha (2018) Evolutionary Mission Planning, In Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp. 1-8.
• S. Dumka, S. Maheshwari, R. Kala (2018) Decentralized Multi-Robot Mission Planning using Evolutionary Computation, In Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp. 662-669.
• R. Kala (2016) Sampling based mission planning for multiple robots. In Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 662-669.
• V. Beri, R. Kala, G.C. Nandi (2019) Time Bound Robot Mission Planning for Priority Machine Using Linear Temporal Logic for Multi Goals. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Ubiquitous Communications and Network Computing, pp 250-263.
• A. Kumar, R. Kala (2016) Linear Temporal Logic-based Mission Planning, International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence, 3(7): 32-41.
• R. Kala (2018) Routing-based navigation of dense mobile robots. Intelligent Service Robotics 11(1): 25–39.
• R. Kala (2018) Increased Visibility Sampling for Probabilistic Roadmaps, In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Simulation, Modelling and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR), Brisbane, Australia, pp. 87-92.

New Generation Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (NewGen IEDC)

Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs

Notable Students (excluding startups)

• Paawan Kumar, Shefali Vinod Ramkete (PhD pursuing)
• Arqum Ahmed (BTech-MTec, 2019)
• Jayesh Chaudhary, Abhishek Nandan (BTech, 2019)

Because getting a white-collar job is too mainstream; the TIDE scheme washes away the inhibitions of entrepreneurship among youths, dresses the young youths as entrepreneurs, fuels in the pockets of the startups with seed funds, grooms and incubates them in-house as future recruiters. You can ask for degrees along with money; and (for students), get grades and credits along with space.