Conglomeration of Control Engineers

Last week, I was back in REC (Oops! NIT), Trichy for a Control Engineering Workshop conducted by ICE Dept. More than attending the conference I was very much excited of going back to my alma matter. But at the end of the three days of workshop, I thought the visit was more to worth it for the learnings, earnings (read contact!) and so on. A quick summary of what happened there (purely my viewpoint and understanding):

It provided the first chance for me to meet the big names in Control in India.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
- Prof. Shankar Bhattacharyya (from Texas A&M University) gave talks on data based (or model-less)
synthesis of fixed order and multi-variable controllers. His current area of research where he works on providing a formal approach to the design (read tuning) processes the industries use for their fixed order controllers (read PIDs). He pointed out to directions where students can pursue their research and benefit both themselves (with the formal approach and rigour) and the industry with the synthesis process.
- Prof. R.Padhi (IISc) talked about gain scheduling, dynamic inversion and neuro adaptive designs and specifically their applications in aerospace.
- Prof.M.S.Bhat (IISc) talked about the Robust optimal control techniques with relevance to aerospace. He also discussed about Variable structure control (or sliding mode control).
- Dr.Girish Deodhar (NAL) provided views on how a number of ideas discussed by Prof. Padhi and Prof.Bhat are utilized by the LCA project. He also discussed a number of difficulties faced in implementation of these to the LCA project. He discussed some of the basic ideas of statically unstable designs and how the fly-by-wire technology takes care of the stability of the aircrafts.
- Prof.M.Chidambaram (Director,NITT) illustrated a simple method for designing PID controllers.
- Prof.A.Ramakalyan (NITT) discussed about how randomized algorithms could help in choosing the right controller from the set of all controllers that any method can provide. He emphasized on the computational problems that would arise after the synthesis of set of all controllers, in the form of choosing one from the set.
- Prof. Siddartha Mukhopadyay (IITKgp) discussed the exciting possibilities of how theory can help the digital testing industry to 'prove' when a design is working and otherwise. He gave glimpses of how the concept of Discrete Event Systems (DES) could bring in immense help to the industry from the theoretically bent academicians.
- Prof. Bijnan Bandopadyay (IITB) gave views on non-linear sliding mode control and their applications.
- Prof.M.Umapathy (NITT) provided with the results of the experiments of application of various control algorithms for the control of Smart Structures.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

On the first day evening Prof.Ramakalyan showed his veena skills by playing a few carnatic classics which was followed by Prof.Shankar Bhattacharyya showing his proficiency with Sarode accompanied on tabla by Gauri Shankar, playing a few hundustani tunes.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

On the second day late afternoon, the participants and delegates took a quick visit to the big temple in Tanjore spending valuable time together discussing other interests.

The temple visit was followed by a banquet in Tanjore where the participants vowed to strive to conduct "Indian Control Conferences". As a precursor to it, a group was to be formed to bring in the control engineering enthusiasts across the country. The core group was decided for this to contain five members: Prof.M.Seetharama Bhat (IISc), Prof.Bijnan Bandopadyay (IITB), Prof.Siddartha Mukhopadyay (IITKgp), Prof.Ramakalyan (NITT), Prof.Arunkumar Mahindrakar (IITM).

Vijay (Research Scholar, IITM) and Ramprakash B (Research Scholar, IITB) would spearhead the framework to bring in the students and others.
A Google group will soon be opened with the aim to integrate the control engineering community in the country.

Among other suggestions, a newsletter as suggested by Prof.S.P.Bhattacharyya looked an important step.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Apart from the food for the thought, the workshop included amazing food served both at the guest house and at the hotel in Tanjore.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

There are a lot more to say, but this would give a fitting glimpse for what happened over the three days. The workshop wasn't flawless as the books and CDs promised couldn't be provided to the guests at the end of the 3rd day due to the issues with transport strike and other reasons. There were also schedule slippages due to which a couple of lectures had to be shortened/dropped. But overall it was a great three days spent.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
PS: In case there is any mistakes, accept my apologies and notify me so that I can correct it as soon as possible.