| Amrita Robotics
Pragati'08
The Amrita Robotics Lab has been initiated to provide Amrita University students a center from which to develop and implement robotic technology. This goal oriented research center will enable students from multiple disciplines to learn, create, and apply knowledge in a variety of advanced topics such as machine vision and image processing, Digital Signal Processing and speech recognition, advanced algorithms, digital architecture development, communication networks, Mechatronics and electronic controls, and Artificial Intelligence, among others.
An important aspect of the Amrita Robotics Lab is its ability to harness India's world renowned natural skills, talents, and resources in computer science, programming, and internet technology. This makes the Amrita Robotics Lab an ideal training place for university students seeking to add practical experience to their theoretical studies. The multi-disciplinary nature of robotics work will draw students from Computer Science, Internet Technology, Electronics, Electrical, and Communications Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and others. The integration of these fields will require disciplined and coordinated team skills; further training Amrita University students for valuable leadership and teamwork positions in industry.
Three graduating senior students last year created a robot, named MARS, for their final year project. In six months, the students gave the robot the ability to move between multiple user-defined destinations, be controlled wirelessly via a server terminal with an easy to use Graphical User Interface, and speak real-time and preprogrammed messages.
A new robot is being created, nick-named MARS Reloaded by the students, which in addition to incorporating functional arms, hands, and facial expressions, will be able to interact via robot-to-robot speech with the other robot. The vision is for the two robots to enact the roles of Krishna and Arjuna, with Arjuna asking various spiritual questions and Krishna giving appropriate answers from the Bhagavad Gita. Future enhancements planned include the addition of legs, dynamic speech interaction, and remote sensing capabilities. This robots flexible and modular architecture design will allow multiple student teams to simultaneously work on many different research frontiers in parallel.
Amrita Robotics Lab is directed under the umbrella of Amrita Research Laboratories, which has been responsible for several industry leading cooperative projects such as the Konkan Railways SkyBus Transportation Network and the Amrita Realtime Kernal Operating System.
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