A five days QIP short term course sponsored by AICTE on Modeling and Control of Robot was organized by Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Department IIT, Roorkee from 11th - 15th July, 2016. Faculty members from various colleges and universities participated in the program. Mr. Anoop Mishra Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida attended the QIP.

The objective of the QIP was to enhance knowledge and skill of the participants to introduce different types of robots through which robotics concepts can be explained & introduce latest modeling and simulation tools used in robotics.

The workshop started with inaugural address by Dr. P M Pathak, Associate Professor Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, IIT Roorkee. Dr. Pathak explained the objective of the workshop.

11 - 07- 2016

The first day of the QIP was started by Dr. P M Pathak with introduction of Robot, its basic concepts and elements of Robots. He explained that a robot is an integration of mechanical, electrical and software components that can be reprogrammed to perform a variety of tasks both with and without human intervention and the robotics is the study of robots design, programming and control. He concluded his session by discussing degree of freedom. He explained the concept and practice of degree of freedom used in robotics.

The next session was delivered by Dr. N. K. Sukavanam, Mathematics Department, IIT Roorkee on Basics of Robotics (Spatial description and transformations). He started his session by explaining about Position and Orientation and discussed how matrix and co-ordinate system is used in the modeling of Robot. He concluded his session by discussing homogeneous transformation. He said homogeneous transformations may be readily used to describe the position and orientation of co-ordinate frames in space. The study of robotic vision and computer graphics are concerned with the relationship between coordinate frames attached to the objects and cameras.

Later Prof. (Dr.) SK Saha, Head of the Department Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi & a well - known personality in the field of Robotics spoke on Robotics facilities available & work carried out in Robotics by IIT, Delhi. Discussion on the following topics was held during the session:

1. Innovative Teaching by using skill based learning methodologies

2. Innovative research for developing rural applications

3. HAPTIC robot

4. SWARM robotics

5. ROBOCON workshops

12- 07 - 2016

Dr. Ekta Singla, School of Mechanical Materials and Energy Engineering, IIT, Ropar delivered lecture on Jacobian: Velocities & Static Forces. She explained the concept of Jacobian matrix. She also defined inverse Jacobian matrix and singularities applications in the modeling of robots.

Dr. Ekta Singla explained Advance topic (Redundant Manipulators: Utilities and Challenges). She discussed her PhD research on Robotics. Next session was taken by Dr. Ashish Dutta, Mechanical Eng. Dept., IIT, Kanpur on Gait Planning for Biped Robots with Compliance. He explained locomotion and need of Biped Locomotion. He also explained research issues in Biped locomotion. Dr. Ashish Dutta, explained about phase plane trajectory and its application in robot designing and modeling.

13 - 07 - 2016

Dr. Sudipto Mukherjee, Mechanical Eng. Dept., IIT, Delhi delivered his lecture on Dynamics (Lagrangian, Newton - Euler,) and bond graph modeling of robots, Steps in Design of Dynamic Systems. After tea break he explained advance topic (Parallel Manipulators) of robots. He concluded his lecture with the MATLAB simulation result and analysis.

Next, Dr. Ashish Singla, Mechanical Eng. Department, Thapar University, Patiala on MATLAB Based Robot Programming explained how MATLAB is useful software in the field of robotics. He also delivered hands on session on MATLAB tool for Robot Modeling and Control. Dr. Ashish Singla explained the advantages of MATLAB over other open source software. He showed the GUI of Robots with MATLAB and also simulation of Robots for their modeling and control.

14 - 07- 2016

Dr. G. N. Pillai, Electrical Engineering Department, IIT, Roorkee delivered lecture on Linear & Nonlinear Control of Manipulators by taking real case studies. He explained open and close loop control of a system. Further he discussed Performance Measures and Performance Specifications. Performance measures mean those general properties or qualities of a closed loop system that are important to its proper functioning. Performance specifications are maximum overshoot, rise time, settling time and bandwidth.

Dr. N. K. Sukavanam, Mathematics Department, IIT, Roorkee took the next lecture on Neural Network Based Control. He said Neural Network, which are simplified models of biological neuron system, is a massively parallel distributed processing system made up of highly interconnected neural computing elements that have the ability to learn and thereby acquire knowledge and make it available for use. A neuron receives input from other neurons (generally thousands) using its synapses. Inputs are approximately summed and when the input exceeds a threshold value, the neuron sends an electrical spike that travels from the body, down the axon, to the next neuron(s).The human brain consists of around 1011 neurons which are highly interconnected with around 1015 connections.

15- 07 - 2016

The last day’s session was conducted by Dr. P .M. Pathak, Mechanical & Industrial Engg. Deptt, IIT Roorkee. The topic of the lecture was “Advance Robotics (space / underwater, bionic robots)”. Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Mathematics Department IIT, Roorkee took the next session on Introduction to Image based Visual Servicing.

The program ended with Valedictory Ceremony and distributions of certificates.

The QIP was informative and beneficial as it created awareness of the benefits of robotics and industrial automation into instruction for effective pedagogical practice in awareness of Robotics.