Location : III-252 A , Phone - 91-11-2659 6367
Faculty in charge : Sunil Jha
Staff In Charge : Mr. Paras Gupta
Research Areas
1. Industrial Automation
Industrial automation is defined as the use of set technologies and automatic control devices that results in the automatic operation and control of industrial processes without significant human intervention and achieving superior performance than manual control. These automation devices include PLCs, PCs, PACs, Electro-pneumatics, hydraulics, etc. and technologies include various industrial communication systems. Automation of a factory or manufacturing or process plant improves production rate through better control of production. It helps to produce mass production by drastically reducing assembly time per product with greater production quality. Therefore, a given labor input produces a large amount of output. Integration of various processes in an industry with automated machinery minimizes cycle times and effort and hence the need for human labor gets reduced. Since automation reduces human involvement, the possibility of human errors also gets eliminated. Uniformity and product quality with greater conformity can be maintained with automation by adaptively controlling and monitoring the industrial processes in all stages right from the inception of a product to an end product. Automation completely reduces the need for manual checking of various process parameters. By taking advantage of automation technologies, industrial processes automatically adjust process variables to set desired values using closed-loop control techniques. Industrial automation increases the level of safety of personnel by substituting them with automated machines in hazardous working conditions. Traditionally, industrial robots and robotic devices are implemented in such risky and hazardous places.

2. Advanced CNC Micromachining System (AMMS)
Emerging miniaturization technologies are driving developments in microscale processes, machines, and metrology to meet needs related to part size, feature definition, accuracy and precision, and materials developments. Exact and accurate micro components with sizes ranging from a few hundred microns to a few millimeters and features ranging from a few hundred microns are in high demand for industries such as automotive, electro-optics, aerospace, biotechnology, information technology, etc. The term micro manufacturing refers to the creation of high-precision three-dimensional (3D) products using a wide range of engineering materials and possessing features with sizes ranging from tens of micrometers to a few millimeters. Facilities of micromachining like micro-cutting micro-drilling and micro-milling with tools micro EDM, micro LBM, and conventional tools to process with in situ measurement technology and integrated grinding tool manufacturing.

3. Magnetorheological fluid-based nano finishing
The surface roughness of a manufactured part plays a vital role in improving the operative functionality of the product. Due to this, there is an increasing demand for highly finished products (surface roughness of the order of nanometers) for their use in advanced engineering applications. Some of the industries that typically require these products are aerospace, automotive, optics, molds and die manufacturing, etc. However, it is not very easy to produce high-quality surfaces by manual/hand polishing or conventional finishing methods. While manual finishing requires both skill and intensive labor, the available traditional processes like lapping, grinding, honing, etc. are limited by the fact that they produce sub-surface damage and residual stresses due to the high average load associated with these processes. To overcome the above difficulties related to fine finishing several new magnetically controlled fluid-based finishing methods have been developed over the last two decades. However, while some of these processes lacked determinism in controlling surface topology others were not always capable of finishing complicated three-dimensional (3D) surfaces. So a new ultra-precision finishing technology called ball end MR finishing is developed for nano finishing of 3D ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic surfaces. In this process, the smart characteristic of the magnetorheological polishing (MRP) fluid is exploited at the tip of a rotating tool which moves over the surface profile to perform the finishing action. In operation, it resembles a vertical milling process, with the ball-shaped tip of magnetically stiffened fluid in place of the milling cutter. The ball end MR tool assembly is mounted on a five-axis CNC setup to finish complex geometries of varieties of materials like steel, fused silica glass, silicon, polycarbonate, copper, aluminum, etc.

4. Cold Metal Transfer Additive Manufacturing
The development of wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), now known as directed energy deposition-arc (DED-arc), is being driven by the need for increased manufacturing efficiency of engineering structures. Its ability to produce very near net shape preforms without the need for complex tooling, moulds or dies offers potential for significant cost and lead time reductions, increased material efficiency, improved component performance and reduction of inventory and logistics costs by local, on-demand manufacture.

5. Embedded Systems
An embedded system is some combination of computer hardware and software, er fixed in capability or programmable, that is designed for a specific function or for specific functions in a larger system. Industrial machines, agricultural and process industry devices, automobiles, medical equipment, cameras, household appliances, airplanes, vending machines, and toys as well as mobile devices are all possible locations for an embedded system. Embedded systems are computing systems, but can range from having no user interface (UI) -- for example, on devices in which the embedded system is designed to perform a single task -- to complex graphical user interfaces (GUI), such as in mobile devices. User interfaces can include buttons, LEDs, touchscreen sensing, and more. Some systems use remote user interfaces as well. Here in Automation Lab, we are working on various Microcontrollers manufactured by Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, and Atmel.

6. PCB Designing
A printed circuit board (PCB) mechanically supports and electrically connects electronic components using conductive tracks, pads, and other features etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. Components (e.g. capacitors, resistors, or active devices) e generally soldered on the PCB. Advanced PCBs may contain components embedded in the substrate.PCBs can be single-sided (one copper layer), double-sided (two copper layers), or multi-layer (outer and inner layers). Conductors on different layers are connected with vias. Multi-layer PCBs allow for much higher component density. Here in Automation Lab, we are designing high-speed PCB layouts using Altium Software, EasyEDA.
