Application IITK Asia Link

8/6/2019 Application IITK Asia Link

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Asia-Link Programme

Phase III

Grant Application Form

Open Call for Proposals


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NOTICE

All personal data (such as names, addresses, CVs, etc.) mentioned in your application form will be processed in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by theCommunity institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data. Your replies to the questions inthis form are necessary in order to assess your grant application and they will be processed solely for that

purpose by the department responsible for the Community grant programme concerned. On request, youmay be sent personal data and correct or complete them. For any question relating to these data, pleasecontact the Commission department to which the form must be returned. Beneficiaries may lodge acomplaint against the processing of their personal data with the European Data Protection Supervisor atany time (Official Journal L 8, 12.1.2001).

Please read and complete this form with all due care, in accordance with the guidelines for applicants.

Please note that the procedure has changed. The evaluation of your application will only be performed if your concept note is provisionally selected. Your application will then undergo the evaluation. Theeligibility conformity check will only be performed for the proposals that have been provisionally selectedaccording to the score obtained after the evaluation, on the basis of the supporting documents requested by

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CONCEPT NOTE1. Summary of the action1.1 Brief description of the proposed action.

In the last decade robotics has stepped out from industrial applications into human society as helpers,rehabilitation devices, welfare supervisors, and entertainment aids. Out of all these applications, human assistiverobots are likely to play a major role in improving the lives of persons with disability due to old age, disease or injury. While ageing society of European countries need customized assistive robots, both European and Asiancountries need assistive robots for severely disabled people whose proportion is uniform across the globe.Although European countries have already made visible progress in the field of assistive robotics, the field is stillrelatively new. It is needless to say that Asian countries like India are lagging behind in this very important field of research. However a collaborative project between Indian Universities and European Universities in the field of assistive robotics will not only produce a large scale specialized man-power that will support both the societies, butalso EU can take advantage of such a collaborative effort to win over other competing nations such as US andJapan. Furthermore, assistive robotics is highly multi-disciplinary and involves many different research fields. Thisis ideal for linking universities from EU and Asia together since the broad coverage of different disciplines enablesus to collaborate better at the university level and generate higher impact. With this back-drop, the main objectiveof our proposal entitled A Collaborative Academic Program for Innovation in Intelligent AssistiveRobotics is to develop specialized man-power through rigorous basic and experimental research in major aspects of assistive robotics that includes rehabilitation robots, wheelchair robots and other mobility aides, andmanipulator arms for the physically disabled. Simultaneously the proposal initiates a novel method of interactionsbetween European and Asian Universities through synchronous e-learning, tele-robotics and exchange visits sothat strength of each partner can be shared. In this regard, the project has a bold vision such as a student from anill-equipped lab can perform remote experiments on a costly physical set-up in another laboratory. Followingobjectives are outlined in this project:

To develop highly skilled human resources graduates with PhD and Masters degrees - in assistiverobotics through collaborative basic and experimental research.

To develop a long vision in assistive robotic research through two international workshops so that a far-reaching impact can be made in this direction. In this regard the help of experts from EUROP, EURON andsuch bodies will be sought.

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2. Relevance:2.1 How relevant is your proposal to the needs and constraints of the target country(ies) or region? As per a conservative estimate, 1 in 3500 of the world population may suffer from a neuro-muscular disorder such

as motor neuron disease (MND). Such people may have no means to communicate with the external world at all.They may be provided mobility and enhanced autonomy through an appropriately designed practical brain - operated assistive robotic system . European countries such as UK and Germany are facing problems such asageing of society, lack of carers and high labour cost of caregivers which can be adequately solved usingcustomized assistive robotic systems. There are about 70 million people with disabilities in the EU. However onlytwo rehabilitation robots have reached noticeable sales numbers on the market: the Handy1 , and the MANUS .Based on the 2001 census, 27.87% of the disabled people which amounts to 61 million suffer from movementdisability in India alone. Additionally India needs low cost assistive robots for the blind, deaf and dumb people.Above all, assistive and rehabilitation robots are urgently needed in health-care institutions of both EU and India to

take care of needy patients.Since the field of assistive-robotics is relatively new, both basic and experimental researches arenecessary to develop low-cost prototypes such that disabled people can afford them. This would requirespecialized man-power in the field of assistive robotics. India and Nepal are good sources of high quality man-power and European Universities have best research facilities. Thus EU-India-Nepal network at the universitylevel can easily tap young man-power of India and Nepal to educate them in this field through a collaborativeresearch and teaching which allows exchange visits, advanced research under joint supervision and provision for high quality experimental facilities.

Moreover robotic research is yet to take a shape in Nepalese context for which the principal cause lies in

the lack of academic curriculum regarding robotics and automation. These courses are vital for overall researchinterest as well as industrial development. Furthermore there is practically no infrastructure for development of robotics and automation in the country apart from a small student group, Robotics Club at the Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Thus the proposal aims to provide logistic support to IOE so thatyoung Nepalese students will be greatly benefited and will be a great source of specialized man-power. We arevery much convinced that EU, India and Nepal collaboration in assistive robotics will play a vital role to serve thehumanity and is a step forward for EU to compete with Japan and US in this cutting-edge technology.2.2 What are the problems to be resolved and the needs to be met? There is an urgent need for developing affordable assistive robotic systems for providing independence to ageing

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India. The proposed project thus fits the strategy of central and local governments very well and is likely to obtainadditional support from local governments for certain activities, e.g., dissemination of project outcomes.3. Methodology and Sustainability:3.1 What are the main project activities?

Following are the main activities: Human resource development - Fifteen faculty members from six institutes/Universities situated in four

counties (India, Germany, UK and Nepal) will jointly supervise 22 Ph.D. and M.Sc. students in the broadarea of intelligent assistive robotics. These students will perform basic and experimental research todevelop necessary expertise to build low cost assistive robotic devices for disabled people.

Synchronism in assistive robotics education between EU and ASIA will be brought out throughsynchronous e-learning and tele-robotics.

Logistic support to IOE Nepal will be provided for robotics education.

Two international workshops one in India and other in Europe will be organized. The project will kick off with a work-shop in India in the first month. Ten experts will be invited to help the collaborative teams toproperly project realistic goal. Also a course module on Soft-computing applications in Assistive Roboticswill be formulated which will be floated as a graduate level 4-unit course. Another work-shop will be heldafter 2.5 years in Europe for critical evaluation of the project outcome with the help of same set of experts.Besides a popular graduate level course module on Assistive Robotics will be formulated at the end of thissecond workshop.

Visibility of the outcome of this EU-Asia collaborative effort will be achieved through road shows as well asthrough dissemination of results in conference proceedings and journal publications.

FWBI will act as transfer unit for exchange of ideas from this consortium to SMEs. So also Invacare UKLimited will closely monitor the research outcome for translating to feasible technology.

3.2 Who will be your main implementing partners, what is the length of your relationship with them and how will they be involved in the project?

We are six partners: Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK), India; International Institute of InformationTechnology, Hyderabad(IIITH), India; Institute of Automation, University of Bremen, Germany (IAT); University of Ulster, Magee Campus(UUM), UK; the University of Birmingham(UB), UK and the Institute of Engineering (IOE),Tribhuvan University, Nepal. This partnership was kick-started when Dr. L. Behera (LB) from IITK visited UUM inh 2006 f ll b i b i i f (BCI) b d i i i Q


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4. Expertise and operational capacity:4.1 What is the experience of your organisation in project management? IITK has been consistently rated as number one tech-school both in teaching and research in India over the years.Every year the institute gets funding of more than Rupees 500 million for execution and implementation of variousprojects and consultancies.4.2. What is the experience of your organisation and your partner(s) of the issues to be addressed? IIT, Kanpur, IndiaIITK research group consists of four lead researchers, namely, Dr. Laxmidhar Behera (LB), Prof. P.K. Kalra (PKK),Dr. Ashish Dutta (AD) and Dr. Y.N. Singh(YNS); five senior Ph.D. students, and two new Ph.D. students to berecruited in this project. The group has extensive research experience in intelligent control, visual motor coordination, advanced neural learning algorithms, advanced control architecture, visual tracking, obstacleavoidance, humanoid robots and data modelling using soft-computing approaches. The group is also wellequipped with advanced experimental set-ups such as a IRB140 6DOF manipulator with stereo vision system,SGI Prism server for visualization, a 7 DOF power-cube robot (redundant manipulator), Patrolbot for experimentation as automated guided vehicle (AGV) and many prototypes of humanoid robots such as static anddynamic walkers. Simultaneously the group is investigating sponsored research with a funding of Rupees 25million.IIIT, Hyderabad, IndiaIIIT, Hyderabad research group consists of Dr. Madhav Krishna, Dr. Bipin Indurkhya, Dr. C. V. Jawahar, two senior PhD students, one M.Sc. student, and one new Ph.D. students to be recruited in this project. The research focusinvolves multi robotic systems, mobile robotics and hybrid legged-wheeled vehicles. Research projects includeprobabilistic localization and mapping, SLAM, planning under constraints, multi sensor surveillance systems for multi target detection, cooperative localization and navigation and force feedback control for hybrid leggedwheeled vehicles and visual information processing. A micro robot is being developed with informal collaborationwith CAIR as a part of platform development to get insight into hardware and embedded system related issues aswell as to jump start swarm robotics research. Previously a four wheeled steered robot was developed incollaboration with CMU.

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IOE, Tribhuvan University, NepalThe IOE research team consists of two lead researchers Dr. Arabinda Mishra, and Mr. AC Mahendra and 2 M.Sc.students. IOE needs logistic support to embark upon robotic education in a full swing.


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FULL APPLICATION FORM


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I. THE ACTION1. DESCRIPTION

1.1 Title: A Collaborative Academic Program for Innovation in Intelligent AssistiveRobotics

1.2 Location (s)

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK), India International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), India Institute of Automation (IAT), University of Bremen, Germany; University of Ulster, Magee Campus(UUM), UK University of Birmingham(UB), UK. Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal

1.3 Cost of the action and amount requested from the European Commission

Total eligible cost of the action Amount requested from theEuropean Commission

% of total eligible cost of action

EUR 1 069 666 EUR 748 852 % 70.00


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1.4 Summary (Maximum 1 page)

Duration of theaction 36 months

Objectives of the action

Overall objective(s)

Human resource development: 15 faculty members from six institutes (UK, Germany,India and Nepal) will supervise 22 Ph.D. and masters students jointly in the field of assistive robotics.

Curriculum Development: Institute of Engineering, IOE, Nepal will be assisted in roboticeducation.

Specific objective

To develop specialized man-power in assistive robotics through collaborative basic andexperimental research.

To develop a long vision in assistive robotic research through two internationalworkshops so that a far-reaching impact can be made in this direction. In this regard thehelp of experts from EUROP, EURON and such bodies will be sought.

To augment graduate level teaching courses in Asian Universities through synchronous

e-learning system from European Universities and vice-versa To conduct practical experiments on assistive robotic systems in European University

from an Asian university through tele-robotic concept and to duplicate this facility amongAsian Universities.

To conduct road-shows on assistive robotic systems in EU and India to increaseawareness among potential users.

To assist Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal in the field of industrialautomation and robotics so that they can start doing indigenous research in the field of robotics. It is planned that IOE will be helped to set up a robotics lab as well as tod l i l i b i


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researchers of the partner-institutes. It is expected that such a method will generate a consortium from academiaand industry to design new or enhanced products that would sustain the present collaboration.

Final outcome of project work will be demonstrated through road-shows in IAT, Bremen, UUM, UK, IITK, India and

IIITH, India where SMEs will be invited. Collaborative deals with interested SMEs will be made who would like toadopt our technological innovations in assistive robotic systems. Two international workshops will be organized totake further guidance from international experts as well as for the critical assessment of the progress.

Finally logistic support to IOE Nepal will be given so that IOE will act as a seed in Nepal to further disseminate theoutcomes from this project to other universities in Nepal in the future.

1.6 Justification(Maximum 3 Pages)

1.6.1 Relevance of the action to the objectives and priorities of the programme

The relevance of the proposal lies in the area of human resource development and curriculum development.Fifteen experienced faculty members will jointly supervise 14 senior Ph.Ds, 5 new PhDs and 3 senior mastersstudents. Thus a total of 37 skilled persons in the field of assistive robotics will be benefited whose impact at theglobal level will surely be felt after the successful implementation of the project. Two international workshops willhelp this collaborative team to closely interact with the best experts in this field. While the project stronglyconnects EU and Asia Universities through research collaboration, simultaneously synchronism in education in thefield of assistive robotics between EU and Asia will be achieved through e-learning and tele-education. A specialschool for IOE, Nepal will be conducted to foster the robotics education there while formulating up-to-date course-curricula in robotics.

1.6.2 Identification of perceived needs and constraints in the target country/ies, in particular inthe region(s) concerned.

As per a conservative estimate, 1 in 3500 of the world population may suffer from a neuro-muscular disorder. Suchpeople may have no means to communicate with the external world at all. They may be provided mobility andenhanced autonomy through an appropriately designed practical brain-operated assistive robotic system .European countries such as UK and Germany are facing problems such as ageing of society, lack of carers and

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expertise necessary to develop an assistive robotic systems. The group is also well equipped with advancedexperimental set ups such as a IRB140 6DOF manipulator with stereo vision system, SGI Prism server for visualization, a 7 DOF power-cube robot (redundant manipulator), Patrolbot for experimentation as automatedguided vehicle (AGV) and many prototypes of humanoid robots such as static walker and dynamic walkers.

Simultaneously the group investigating sponsored research with a funding of Rupees 25 million.IIIT, Hyderabad, IndiaIIIT, Hyderabad research group consists of Dr. Madhav Krishna, Dr. Bipin Indurkhya and Dr. C. V. Jawahar and 2senior students, one New Ph.D. students and one senior Masters students. The research focus is diverse andinvolves multi robotic systems, mobile robotics and hybrid legged wheeled vehicles. Research projects includeprobabilistic localization and mapping, SLAM, planning under constraints, multi sensor surveillance systems for multi target detection, cooperative localization and navigation and force feedback control for hybrid leggedwheeled vehicles and visual information processing. The center's activities include algorithms for off-the-shelf

mobile platforms as well as platform development. A micro robot is being developed with informal collaborationwith CAIR as a part of platform development to get insight into hardware and embedded system related issues aswell as to jump start swarm robotics research. Previously a four wheeled steered bot was developed incollaboration with CMU. The research is being funded by DST, CAIR, DRDO, MCIT, HP Labs among others.

Institute of Automation (IAT), University of Bremen, GermanyIAT is one of the premier research institutes in Bremen and Germany in the field of automation and robotics. IAThas three research groups: "Robotics and Process Automation", "System Dynamics and Control" along with "Real-Time Systems". Currently, the institute has two professors; Prof. Axel Grser and Prof. Thiele Georg, bothexperienced and actively participating in current research projects of the institute. Apart from these professors, theinstitute has three other associate professors, Prof. Rdiger Kutzner, Prof. Kai Mller and Prof. Jrg Schultz. Theinstitute also has four experienced researchers Dr. Dorin Aiteanu, Dr. Bernhard Graimann, Dr. Ola Friman, and Dr.Ivan Volosyak each of them concentrating their research on several topics namely; Computer Vision, AugmentedReality, Signal Processing, Robust Image processing methods and Human Brain Interface. There are also,eighteen international PhD students; and several master and diploma students as research assistants.

The institute is currently pursuing active research in dealing with different aspects of automation androbotics. It covers topics like computer vision, robust image processing, reactive sensor based architecture, brain-computer interface, human machine interface, augmented reality, mapped virtual reality, motion planning, softwareframework for service robotics, and control systems. There have been different successful projects in the


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tasks as well as in evolvable hardware design for fault-tolerant control. IAT Bremen will lead the research in visualnavigation while UUM will lead the research in BCI based natural communication between disabled and roboticsystem. IITK will lead the research in robot control and exo-skeleton while IIITH will lead in integrated navigationsystem. All these aspects of research is complementary for all partners who will gain expertise in this multi-

disciplinary field of assistive robotics. Simultaneously all five partners will assist IOE, Nepal to come up in roboticresearch so that the seed in Nepal is properly groomed to further disseminate the outcomes from this project toother universities in Nepal in the future.

1.7 Detailed description of activities(Maximum 9 Pages)

Title: A Collaborative Academic Program for Innovation in Intelligent AssistiveRobotics

The project proposal includes activities in four main areas as discussed below:

1.7.1 Specialized Man-power Building Through Basic and Experimental Researchin Assistive Robotics

Common Theme for the Ph.D. thesis work : As per a conservative estimate, 1 in 3500 of the worlds population may suffer from a neuro-muscular disabilitysuch as motor neurone disease (MND), and may have no means of communicating with the external world. Thisimplies nearly 0.3 million people with severe movement disability in India alone. In addition, out of 21.9 milliondisabled people (Sensus 2001), 6.1 million suffer from movement disability. For providing independence andassisted living to such people, it is intended to investigate intelligent systems for devising an autonomous


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modules will be developed. The Indian partner (IIITH) has developed some landmark algorithm --- while UKpartner (UUM) have been successful using optical-flow based obstacle avoidance scheme.

Self-organised control architecture for redundant manipulator system interfaced with a visual-feedback system will

be designed in such a way that it is robust, stable and smart. Model based control systems for redundantmanipulators without visual feedback has already been tested in real-time. Visual motor coordination basedmanipulation schemes already exist for non-redundant systems in which the Indian Partner (IITK) has necessaryexpertise in both basic and experimental aspects. However, a visual motor coordination of a redundantmanipulator system that simultaneously avoids obstacles while performing smart manipulative jobs is a challengesince the learning problem involves constrained optimization with multiple objective functions and a real-timeexecution capability. The expertise of the IITK group will be combined with novel methodology of feedbackstructure in image processing by the German partner to come up with a practical and efficient solution to theproblem.

In general, control algorithms for smart wheel chair and redundant manipulator are very challenging given theback-drop of time-varying complex system characteristics requiring on-line adaptation and constrainedoptimization. One novel way to solve this problem is to apply evolutionary techniques. Ensemble of neuralnetworks can be trained to perform complex tasks through evolutionary approaches, so also evolvable hardwarecan be designed to develop fault-tolerant controls systems for the smart-wheel chair and redundant manipulator combination. In this regard, expertise of the UK partner (UB) will be shared by other partners to develop suitableevolvable control algorithm and control hardware for assistive robotics.

In some cases of disability due to old age, disease or injury, people prefer muscular function augmentation throughexo-skeletal devises so that they could perform the activities of daily living (ADL) using their own hands rather thanan external robotic manipulator. Building on the expertise of the IITK partner, a PhD topic is identified to deal withthe development of an exo-skeletal robotic device for supporting the hand of disabled persons. Its basicmechanical structure will consist of a mechanical hand that has three to four degrees of freedom at the wrist, andis attached to the arm below the elbow. The hand will consist of a two finger gripper that is force or positioncontrolled. The two fingers would have two degrees-of-freedom (DOF) each and will be designed so that it canhold objects of daily use. The wearer will communicate with the hand by an advanced man machine interfaceconsisting of sensors, actuators and a controller.


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work will be designed to create a system for validating the action commands before their eventual execution. Ascene reader will be designed that will facilitate reading the details from a captured scene, so as to point to thedesired target using BCI. Finally experiments with both able-bodied and disabled subjects to evaluate thecapability of QNN/T2FL-based BCI configured to operate asynchronously the VK with scene reader and feedback

for running the AGV and a manipulator will be conducted in UUM and IITK.2. Visual tracking of a smart wheel-chair operated as an automated guided vehicle (AGV)Supervisor: Dr L. Behera, IIT, Kanpur Collaborator External Supervisors: Prof A. Graeser, IAT, Bremen, Dr. G. Prasad, UUM, UK and Dr. C.V.Jawahar, IIITH.Senior Ph.D. students: Swagat Kumar, IITK spends 4 months at UUM, A Browne, UUM student spends 4months at IAT.

New Ph.D student: 1(IITK) spends 6 months at IAT and 6 months at UUM.For joint supervision LB visits IAT and GP visits IAT for two months.

The IAT group has developed great expertise in this area and collaborating partners will take advantage of thisexpertise through exchange visits. Visual tracking (VT) algorithms including target position prediction (TPP) andmotion control algorithms for AGVs will be critically reviewed. An efficient visual tracking algorithm usingunscented Kalman Filter will be developed and will be implemented on Patrolbot at IITK where senior Ph.D.students from IAT and UUM will also be involved. Simultaneously this algorithm will be tested on Friend II andPeoplebot in IAT and UUM respectively. A TPP algorithm using QNN will be developed and its performance willbe evaluated with existing algorithms. The successful implementation of the algorithm on Patrolbot at IITK will beshared with collaborating partners. Feedback structure in image processing is a closed-loop digital imageprocessing which has been successfully implemented by IAT group for visual tracking. This novel concept will befurther investigated by the collaborative partners to improve the performance of the visual tracking algorithms. Acombined AGV motor dynamics and camera model will be developed for efficient implementation of the motioncontrol algorithm of the smart wheel chair. A novel adaptive motion control algorithm using SOFNN will then bedeveloped. Real-time test and verification of BCI operated AGV on Peoplebot and wheelchair at UUM, Patrolbot atIITK and Friend II at IAT will be carried out.

3. Development of an integrated navigation system for a wheel chair like assistive robot


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as applicable to redundant manipulators. The redundancy resolution schemes such as task-based configurationcontrol will be investigated. Adaptive control schemes as applicable to a redundant manipulator will be derived. Avisual feedback control scheme using fuzzy TS models will be developed. These algorithms will be implementedon a 7DOF power-cube robot both at IITK and IAT. UUM team will be involved in developing an embedded control

system using FPGA for hardware implementation of the neural control algorithms. Self-organized map (SOM)based visual motor coordination schemes KSOM , PSOM , and QSOM as extended to redundant manipulator system where redundancy is resolved through constrained optimization will be investigated for developing anefficient algorithm. The feedback structure in image processing will be introduced to make visual-motor coordination scheme more robust and fast. These algorithms will be implemented in real-time on a 7DOF power cube robot both at IITK and IAT. The performance will be compared with Visual motor coordination using SOFNNalgorithm and type-2 fuzzy system based learning algorithm .

5. Neural Network Ensemble Learning for Robotic ControlSupervisors: Prof. Xin Yao, UB, UK.Collaborator External Supervisors: Dr. L. Behera, IITK, and Dr. AK Mishra, IOE Nepal.Senior Ph.D. students: Mr Awhan Patnaik, IITK will spend 6 months in UB, 1(UB student) will spend 4 months inIITK.Senior Masters student: Ramesh Chaudhary, IOE, Nepal, a senior M.Sc. student will spend 6 months at UBduring his/her thesis work.For joint supervision LB visits UB for two months and XY visits IITK for two months.

Many real-world problems are too large and too complex for a single neural network (NN) to solve alone. An NNensemble consisting of several individual NNs has been shown to be able to improve NN's generalizationperformance . There have been much work in training NN ensembles , in mixtures of experts, and in variousboosting and bagging methods. However, all these methods are used to adapt weights in an ensemble. Thestructure of the ensemble, e.g., the number of NNs in the ensemble, and the structure of individual NNs, e.g. thenumber of hidden nodes, are all designed manually and fixed during the training process. While manual design of NNs and ensembles might be appropriate for problems where rich prior knowledge and an experienced NN expertexist, it often involves a tedious trial-and-error process for many real-world problems because rich prior knowledgeand experienced human experts are hard to get in practice. This project will study constructive ensemble learning


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structures are necessary. EHW provides an ideal approach to make hardware "soft" by adapting the hardwarestructure to a problem dynamically.

The primary aim of this project is to study the evolutionary design of fault-tolerant control system using our idea of

negative correlation and artificial speciation . In addition to fault-tolerance, the evolutionary approach is also verygood at discovering hardware designs that are hard to hit upon by human designers . This will be particularlyappropriate for robotic control where the controller adapts its architecture and function automatically. In particular,the objectives of this project include:

to study the evolutionary design of fault-tolerant circuits when redundancy is used; to study different diversity measures, especially negative correlation and artificial speciation, in evolving

fault-tolerant circuits; to compare and analyse evolved circuits with conventionally designed ones; to develop evolvable controller for robots.

7. Developing an Open source Machine Vision Library for service and industrial robotic applicationsSupervisor: Prof. A. Graeser, IATCollaborator External Supervisors: Dr. Ashish Dutta, IITK, Dr. L. Behera, IITK, Dr. G. Prasad, UUM, and Dr. B.Indurkhya, IIITH..Senior Ph.D. student: KS Vuppala, IAT spends 4 months at IIITH.

New Ph.D. student: 1(IAT student) spends 12 months at IIITK.

There have been different open source machine libraries existent that are capable of providing low, middle andhigher level image processing functionalities . What is missing is a general environment for researchers andeducationalists in being able to use the algorithms being or already developed by other peers who work in theresearch field of machine vision. This problem is addressed by developing an interface to all the developedalgorithms for various industrial, service and assistive robotics applications. All the developed modules are to beaccumulated and made available via an interactive interface to the entire user community. By providing such aninterface, even beginners would be able to start using some of the common and existing modules of MachineVision. To develop such a generic open source interface in the various fields related to Machine Vision could be a


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for object recognition, constrained by varying environmental conditions such as light and background noise. Theresearch will be demonstrated by application to autonomous robotic control. The project will extend thecollaborative research results of the EU funded project Sensemaker http://isel.infm.ulst.ac.uk/sensemaker.html

In this proposal the experimental research will validate the higher cognitive models from psychophysical researchparadigms evaluated in the Sensemaker project. These models implement dynamic rules of cross-modalintegration, activity and time-dependent algorithms for internal prediction, goal directed attention, and transitionsbetween dominant or convergent sensory modalities according to changing environmental parameters. From anintelligent systems engineering perspective they provide an opportunity to research the design of intelligentmachines and will lead to a new generation of dynamically adaptable, flexible architectures with multi-competentworking ranges, in some ways resembling the parallel processing capacities and perception capabilities of thehuman brain. An exemplar application for such work is assistive robots as such implementations will embody therobot with an intelligent capability to enable it to make informed decisions from a range of integrated inputs muchlike a biological system. In practical terms the research will involve consideration of an appropriate host embeddedsystem using FPGA devices to emulate the inherent flexibility.

9. Development of an exoskeletal robot for human hand support mechanical design, sensor fusion, andcontrolSupervisors: Drs Ashish Dutta and L. Behera, IITK.Collaborator External Supervisors: Drs. M. Krishna, G. Prasad and Prof. A. Graeser

New Ph.D. students: 1(IITK) student spends 6 months at IAT and 6 months at UUM.Ashish Dutta visits IAT for two months for joint supervision.

In order to improve the lives of persons with disability due to old age, disease or injury through human muscular function augmentation, several types of exoskeletal devises have been built which can be classified into two maingroups. The first group is for helping the disabled perform daily actions like eating, walking etc., while the secondgroup is mainly for enhancing human capabilities (e.g. lifting heavy loads etc.). This PhD project proposal aims todeal with the development of an exo-skeletal robot for supporting the hand of disabled persons. Its basicmechanical structure consists of a mechanical hand that has three to four degrees of freedom at the wrist, and isattached to the arm below the elbow. The hand consists of a two finger gripper that is force or position controlled.The two fingers would have two degrees-of-freedom (DOF) each and will be designed so that it can hold objects of
http://isel.infm.ulst.ac.uk/sensemaker.htmlhttp://isel.infm.ulst.ac.uk/sensemaker.html


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2. Tele-robotics and performing experiments on remote physical hardware via internet Joint Supervisors: Dr. YN Singh (IITK), Prof. Graeser, IAT, GermanyMan-power support: 1 Project assistantYN Singh will visit IAT for one month and UUM for one month to monitor the work of synchronous e-learning and

tele-robotics.

IAT, Bremen, IIT, Kanpur and UUM have very good experimental platforms for research in assistive robotics suchas brain-computer interface system, smart wheel chairs, redundant manipulators and visual control. In generalexperiments in assistive robotic system require very costly equipments and every University may not have all thefacilities. For example, to develop a brain-operated smart wheel chair, we need to combine facilities of UUM andIITK through tele-robotics so that researchers in both the places can have access to necessary equipments for experimentation. In addition, many Asian Universities do not have proper infrastructure for robotics experiments.Thus it is proposed to connect the labs of all partners associated with this proposal so that each researcher can

execute his algorithm in a remote physical hardware situated in another lab, via the Internet, in real time. Alsoinvestigations will be made if one can perform experiment in two different set-ups situated in two different places.For example, it would be interesting to see if a UUM researcher can interface the BCI system located at UUM withthe smart wheel chair located at IIT, Kanpur. This project if becomes successful will usher a new era in trainingand developing specialized man-power in assistive robotics.

1.7.3 Logistics Support to IOE, Nepal in Robotic Research

1. Robotics Education in IOE Nepal

Since IOE, Nepal has just entered into robotic research; the group needs academic and research support. Aspecial course module on Robotics and Automation will be devised during the 1 st international workshop. Dr.Arabinda K. Mishra, IOE will teach this course at IOE with the support from IITK and IIITH. A couple of facultymembers from IITK will deliver lectures for one week each at IOE. 2. Assisting IOE to set up a Robotics LaboratoryFollowing equipments will be procured:


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[6]. Neupera, C, Mullerb GR, . Kublerc, A, Birbaumerc, N, Pfurtschellera, G, Clinical application of an EEG-basedbraincomputer interface: a case study in a patient with severe motor impairment, Clinical Neurophysiology,Vol. 114 (2003), pp 399409.

[7]. Schlogl, A, Vidaurre, C, Pfurtscheller G, Assessing non-stationarities in BCI data, BCI 2005 Workshop,

Rensellaville, NY, USA..[8]. Leng G , Prasad G, McGinnity TM, "An On-line Algorithm for Creating Self-organising Fuzzy Neural Networks",Neural Networks, Elsevier, 2004, Vol. 17, pp 1477-1493.

[9]. C. Martens, N. Ruchel, O. Lang, O. Ivlev, and A Graeser, A FRIEND for assisting handicapped people, IEEERobotics & Automation Magazine,Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2001 Page(s):57 65

[10]. Richard C. Simpson, Smart wheelchairs: A literature review, Journal of Rehabilitation Research andDevelopment, Vol. 42, Number 4, Pages 423-436, 2005

[11]. Ren C. Luo and Tse M. Chen, Autonomous mobile target tracking system based on grey-fuzzy controlalgorithm, IEEE Trans Industrial Electronics, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2000

[12]. N. Bredeche, Z. Shi, and J-D Zucker, Perceptual learning and abstraction in machine learning: An applicationto autonomous robotics, IEEE Trans SMC-Part C, Vol 36, No 2, 2006

[13]. A. Arleo, F. Smeraldi and W. Gerstner, Cognitive navigation based on nonuniform Gabor space sampling,unsupervised growing networks and reinforcement learning, IEEE Trans on Neural Network, Vol 15, No. 32004

[14]. T. Dutta and G. R. Fernie, Utilization of ultrasound sensors for anti-collision systems of powered wheelchairs.IEEE Trans. on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, Vol 13, No. 1, MARCH 2005, pp 24-32.

[15]. N.P. Papanikolopous, P.K. Khosla, and T. Kanade. Visual tracking of a moving target by a camera mounted on a robot: A combination of control and vision . In IEEE Trans. Robotics and Automation, 9(1):14-35, February

1993.[16]. J.W. Lee. M.S. Kim, and I.S. Kweon. A Kalman filter based visual tracking algorithm for an object moving in3D, Proceedings IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent robots and systems, Vol. 1, pp 342-347, 1995.

[17]. E.A. Wan and R. van der Merwe,The unscented Kalman filter in Kalman Filtering and Neural Networks,Edited by Simon Haykin, pp 221-280, 2001.

[18]. Laxmidhar Behera, Indrani Kar and Avshalom C. Elitzur, Recurrent Quantum Neural Network Model toDescribe Eye Tracking of Moving Target, Foundations of Physics Letters, Vol. 18, No. 4, 357-370, 2005

[19]. Laxmidhar Behera, Indrani Kar and A.C. Elitzur, Chapter 9: Recurrent Quantum Neural Network and ItsApplications, in The Emerging Physics of Consciousness, Jack Tuszynski (Ed), Springer Verlag, 2005
http://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/[email protected]


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[33]. K. Madhava Krishna and Henry Hexmoor Reactive Collision Avoidance of Multiple Moving Agents byCooperation and Conflict Propagation, Proc. of ICRA, (IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation), NewOrleans, April 2004

[34]. Madhava Krishna, Srinivas CHellappa, and H. Hexmoor, 2005. Reactive Navigation of Multiple MovingAgents by Collaborative Resolution of Conflicts, Journal of Robotic Systems , 22(5) , 249-269, WileyPeriodicals, Inc

[35]. K. Madhava Krishna, R. Alami and T. Simeon, Safe Proactive Plans and their Execution, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 54 (2006) 244-255 (available online at www.sciencedirect.com ) November 2005

[36]. I. J. Nagrath, L. Behera, Madhav Krishna and K. D. Rajsekar, Real-time navigation of a mobile robot usingKohonen network, 8th International conference on advanced Robotics, ICAR'97, pp. 459-466, Monterery, CA,USA.

[37]. Madhav Krishna, Deepak Rajsekar, I.J. Nagrath, and L. Behera , On a fast optimal path planning algorithm for mobile robots, International symposium on intelligent Robotics, CAIR, Bangalore, January 1998

[38]. K Madhava Krishna and Prem K Kalra, Detection Tracking and Avoidance of Multiple Dynamic Objects,Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Kluwer Academic, pp. 371-408(33), 2002.

[39]. K Madhava Krishna and Prem K Kalra, When does the Robot Perceive a Dynamic Object, Journal of RoboticSystems, John Wiley, vol. 19, no. 2, 2002.

[40]. JohnT. Feddema , C.S.George Lee O. Robert Mitchell , Model-Based Visual Feedback Control for a Hand-EyeCoordinated Robotic System, IEEE Computer, Vol. 25, No. 8, pp21-31,1992

[41]. Kawai,H. Murao,T. Fujita,M. Passivity-based dynamic visual feedback control with uncertainty of cameracoordinate frame, Proceeding American Control Conference 2005, Vol 5, pp 3701- 3706

[42]. S. Alfs, O. Ivlev, C. Martens, and A. Graeser; Simulation tool for kinematic configuration control technology for

dexterous robots, 25 th IEEE conference IECON '99 Proceedings, Volume 1, 29 Nov.-3 Dec. 1999 Page(s):430- 435

[43]. O. Lang and A. Graeser; Visual control of 6 DOF robots with constant object size in the image by means of zoom camera, 25 th IEEE conference IECON '99 Proceedings, Volume 3, 29 Nov.-3 Dec. 1999, Pages 1342-1347.

[44]. H. Seraji, M.K. Long and T.S. Lee, Motion control of 7DOF arms: The configuration control approach, IEEETrans Robotics and Automation, Vol. 9, No. 2, 125-139,1993

[45]. Anjan K Ray, Mayank Agrawal and Laxmidhar Behera,Kinematic Control of Robot Manipulators using VisualFeedback, IEEE Int. Symposium on Intelligent Control (ISIC), 2006, Munich, Germany.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/http://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=John%20T.%20Feddemahttp://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=C.S.%20George%20Leehttp://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=O.%20Robert%20Mitchellhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(kawai%20%20h.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=Kawai%2C+H.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(kawai%20%20h.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=Kawai%2C+H.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(%20murao%20%20t.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=+Murao%2C+T.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(%20fujita%20%20m.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=+Fujita%2C+M.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://www.sciencedirect.com/http://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=John%20T.%20Feddemahttp://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=C.S.%20George%20Leehttp://search2.computer.org/advanced/Author_Result.jsp?qtype=3&select=50&qOpt1=DC_CREATOR&sortOrder=d&queryName=O.%20Robert%20Mitchellhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(kawai%20%20h.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=Kawai%2C+H.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(%20murao%20%20t.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=+Murao%2C+T.&reqloc%20=others&history=yeshttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?disp=cit&queryText=(%20fujita%20%20m.%3CIN%3Eau)&valnm=+Fujita%2C+M.&reqloc%20=others&history=yes


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[61]. X. Yao and Y. Liu, ``Getting Most Out of Evolutionary Approaches,'' Proc. of the 2002 NASA/DoDConference on Evolvable Hardware (EH'02) , A. Stoica, J. Lohn, R. Katz, D. Keymeulen and R. Zebulum (eds.),IEEE Computer Society, pp.8-14, July 2002.

[62]. T. Schnier and X. Yao, ``Using negative correlation to evolve fault-tolerant circuits,'' Proc of the 5thInternational Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES'2003) , 17th - 20th March2003, Trondheim, Norway, pp.35-46.

[63]. T. Schnier, X. Yao and P. Liu, ``Digital Filter Design Using Multiple Pareto Fronts,'' Proceedings of the Third NASA/DoD Workshop on Evolvable Hardware , pp.136-145, IEEE Computer Society Press, July 2001.

[64]. Intel Corporation, http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/opencv/ . Open Source Computer VisionLibrary

[65]. MathWorks, http://www.mathworks.com/products/image/ . Image processing toolbox[66]. ARToolworks, http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/ . Augmented reality toolkit

[67]. Point Grey Research, http://www.ptgrey.com/products/bumblebee2/ . Stereo vision products

1.8 Methodology (MAX 4 pages)

1.8.1 Methods of implementation and reasons for the proposed methodology.

Five main activities are as follows:

Human resource development through advanced study and collaborative research in intelligent assistiverobotics.

Synchronism in Assistive robotics education between EU and Asia through synchronous e-learning and
http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/opencv/http://www.mathworks.com/products/image/http://www.mathworks.com/products/image/http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/http://www.ptgrey.com/products/bumblebee2/http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/opencv/http://www.mathworks.com/products/image/http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/http://www.ptgrey.com/products/bumblebee2/


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FWBI Breman and Invacare UK have been involved in this project as associate partners which will constantlyendeavour for exchange of ideas and transfer of technology from EU-Asia partnership to SMEs. This would helpthis collaboration to be sustained in a long run. In this regard, FWBI and Invacare representatives will attend twointernational workshops and road shows.

1.8.2 Where the action is the prolongation of a previous action, explain how the action is intended to build onthe results of this previous action.

Not Applicable

1.8.3 Where the action is part of a larger programme, explain how it fits or is coordinated with this programme. Please specify the potential synergies with other initiatives, in particular from the EC.

Not Applicable

1.8.4 Procedures for follow up and internal/external evaluation.

A major outcome of the proposed project is to produce 5 new doctorates in the area of assistive robotics and toassist 14 existing PhD students as well as 3 masters students through joint supervision under the EU-Asia link.There exists a well-tested model in every university/institute to check the progress of PhD students. For instanceat UUM, the first assessment takes place after 3 months and the second after 9 months. The outcome of the firstassessment is mainly advisory in nature. In the second assessment, a decision is made about the continuation of


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UB has been leading research in evolutionary computation. Thus UB will supervise students in the area of evolutionary ensemble network and evolvable hardware for robotic applications.

1.8.6 Team proposed for implementation of the action (by function: there is no need to include the names of individuals here).Each partner will take the responsibility for the progress of the Ph.D and masters students at their work place. IITKwill take the responsibility for the 1 st workshop while UUM will take the responsibility for the second workshop. IAT,IIITH and IOE will take the responsibility of conducting 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd annual meetings respectively. IITK willcoordinate the logistic support to IOE, Nepal. Dr. YN Singh, IITK will coordinate the activities in relation tosynchronous e-learning and tele-robotics. UUM, UK will coordinate the road-show in UK, IAT will coordinate theroad-show in Germany while IITK will coordinate road-show program in India and Nepal. FWBI will take theresponsibility of transfer of technology from this partnership collaboration to SMEs. IITK will take the responsibilityof overall progress of the project

1.8.7 Main means proposed for implementation of the action (equipment, tools).

IAT, Bremen has been pioneer in assistive robotic research through projects such as Friend I and Friend II. Thisinstitute has excellent facilities for research in Mobile Robotics and Redundant manipulator system.Simultaneously experimental facilities for visual servoing applications are in place to test advanced algorithms.

The IITK group is also well equipped with advanced experimental set ups such as a IRB140 6DOF manipulator

with stereo vision system, SGI Prism server for visualization, a 7 DOF power-cube robot (redundant manipulator),Patrolbot for experimentation as automated guided vehicle (AGV) and many prototypes of humanoid robots suchas static and dynamic walkers. The institute has a very advanced control laboratory, a centre for mechatronics(Robotics center) and excellent computational facilities to carry out the proposed work.

In UUM, BCI projects are supported by a state-of-the-art EEG-based BCI system bought from Guger TechnologiesOEG, Austria. The system is installed in a screened room, which is part of the advanced experimental facility of ISEL at the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems. It has 56 EEG channels and 8 electromyogram (EMG)channels interfaced to a high power industrial PC for Bio-signal processing under the MATLAB environment. The


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1.9 Duration and action planThe duration of the action will be 36 months.Action Plan # 1 PhD Thesis Work: A Brain-computer interface for natural communication

Year 1Semester 1 Semester 2

Activity Month -> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Implementing

body


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dynamics and camera model. Implementation of model based motion

control algorithm on Peoplebot, UUM. NPS1 will visit IAT and will undertake:

Development of a novel visual trackingalgorithm using feedback structure inimage processing.

Real-time test and verification of thealgorithm on Friend II at IAT

IAT

LB, IITK will visit IAT for two months for joint supervision.

IAT

Final evaluation and thesis writing. IITK

Action Plan # 3 Thesis work: Development of an integrated navigation system for a wheel chair like assistive robot

Year 1Semester 1 Semester 2


body


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Intelligent control of a redundantmanipulator using visual feedback

Senior Ph.D. students S Kumar and AK Rayfrom IITK who are working on this project

would have completed following actions before the start of this project: Survey of visual feedback (VF) and task-

based configuration control , and adaptivecontrol schemes as applicable to aredundant manipulator.

Development of a VF control schemeusing fuzzy TS models andimplementation on a 7DOF power-cube

robot, IITK.

IITK

Senior Ph.D. student AK Ray, IITK will visitUUM for 6 months to work on Visual motor coordination using SOFNN algorithm and type-2 fuzzy system based learning algorithm.

UUM

Senior Ph.D. student S Kumar, IITK will visitIAT for 6 months to work on Self-organizedmap (SOM) based visual motor coordinationschemes KSOM , PSOM , and QSOM as

extended to redundant manipulator systemwhere redundancy is resolved throughconstrained optimization.

IAT

For the following years:Activity Semester 3 4 5 6 Implement

ing body


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Senior PhD student A Patnaik from IITK willvisit UB to work on this project. He has alreadydeveloped necessary background on this topic

UB

LB, IITK will visit UB for two months for jointsupervision. UB

For the following years:

Activity Semester 3 4 Implement-ing body

Senior masters student Ramesh Chaudharyfrom IOE will carry out his MS dissertation onthis topic at UB.

UB

Action Plan # 6 Thesis/dissertation work: Evolutionary Design of Fault-Tolerant Control Systems


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Semester 1 Semester 2Activity Month -> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Impleme

nting body

Developing an Open source Machine VisionLibrary for service and industrial roboticapplications

New PhD student (NPS4) from IAT will starthis Ph.D. work on this topic.

IAT

Senior Ph.D. student SK Vuppala from IATwill visit IIITH for four months.

IIITH


Activity Semester 3 4 5 6 Implement-ing

body NPS4 will visit IITK for one year IITK Completion of thesis work and thesis writing. IAT

Action Plan # 8 Thesis/Dissertation Work: Robotic Perception exploiting cognitive neuroscience


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bodyDevelopment of an exoskeletal robot forhuman hand support mechanical design,sensor fusion and control

New PhD student (NPS2) from IITK will carryout his thesis work at IITK on mechanicaldesign of exo-skeleton.

IITK


Activity Semester 3 4 5 6 Implement-ing body

NPS2 will visit IAT.

IAT

Ashish Dutta will visit IAT for two monthsfor joint supervision.

IAT

NPS2 will visit UUM.

UUM

NPS2 will complete his thesis work andthesis writing.

IITK


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3 4 5 6Code optimisation and up-gradation based on feedback from users

IITK

Client design (GUI, protocol engine) IAT, IITK

Video server design and implementation IITK, IATVideo client design and implementation IITK, IATDeployment of system IOE, IIIT, UUM,

UB

Action Plan # 11 Other Major activities

Activity Month -> 1 12 24 30 34 35 36 Implementing body

International Workshop 1 at IITK IITK International Workshop 2 at UUM UUMAnnual Meeting 1 at IAT IATAnnual Meeting 2 at IIITH IIITHRoad show in Germany and UK UUM,IATRoad show in India and Nepal IITK


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IAT lead researchers will have the opportunity to supervise one new Ph.D student at IAT, two new Ph.D. studentsfrom IITK in visual navigation and visual feedback control. IAT will also supervise Ph.D. thesis of a new Ph.D.students from IITH for one year. Senior Ph.D. students from IITK and UUM will visit to share their work-experiencewith their counterparts in IAT. It will be a wonderful opportunity for IAT to demonstrate their expertise in assistiverobotic research through joint supervision and by providing excellent experimental facility to Asian students .

University of Ulster, Magee Campus, UK

One new Ph,D student will be recruited for UUM and will work on brain-computer interface based naturalcommunication. The Ph.D. student will visit IITK for learning quantum neural networks which will be useful for modelling EEG data. UUM group will supervise one senior M.Sc. student for one year on robot perception. Thisgroup will also be responsible for supervising two New Ph.D students from India. Two senior Ph.D. students willvisit IITK for collaborative thesis work with their Indian counter-parts in the field of Visual navigation and visualfeedback control. Another senior Ph.D. student from UUM will visit IAT for collaborative thesis work in visual

navigation. One of the lead researchers from UUM will visit IITK and IAT for joint supervision of the thesis works.University of Brimingham, UK

UB lead researchers will jointly supervise two senior Ph.D. students from IITK and two senior masters studentsfrom Nepal in Ensemble Neural networks and evolvable hardware which will be mutually beneficial. Two senior Ph.D. students from UB will visit IITK and IIITH for collaborative thesis work. The novel algorithms developed inUB will be verified through experimentation at IITK.

IOE, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

IOE, Nepal will benefit in terms of logistic support from other partners in robotic research. Equipments worth Euro60,000.00 will be procured for infrastructure development. Two senior masters students will visit UB for thesiswork in Ensemble neural network and evolvable hardware. IOE faculty member will be trained in roboticstechnology and a special course module in robotics and automation will be developed.

In general all the partners will have a win-win situation by gaining from each other. By associating FWBI, Bremenand Invacare UK limited, this partnership is ensuring its long-term collaboration through industrial sponsorships inthis very exciting field which will be mutually beneficial for both EU and Asia.


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governments very well and is likely to obtain additional support from local governments for certain activities, e.g.,dissemination of project outcomes.

Also successful completion of this project will inspire present consortium to expand their collborative efforts. Thereis a very strong desire in EU and UK universities/institutes to establish collaborative links with Indian

universities/institutes in particular and other Asian countries in general. For example, a UK India Education andResearch Initiative (UKIERI) was recently launched by UK and India governments to support collaborative projectsbetween UK and India institutions. We therefore strongly believe that the collaborative activities will continue morevigorously with institutional support at the end of action

One of the most important outcomes would be official endorsement of Joint Ph.D. system between EU and India. If this proposal is funded, then partners will approach respective head of institutes for legislation in this regard.

2.4.2 Institutional Level ( Intellectual Property Right (IPR))

All the participating institutions IITK, IIITH, IAT, UUM, UB and IOE will share any IPR arising out of the project.Exact percetange of the IPR credit to each of the individual researchers will be decided through a formal meetingof all the researchers in which a unanimous decision will need to be arrived at.

2.5 Logical framework

Please fill in Annex C1

3. BUDGET FOR THE ACTION

Fill in Annex B (worksheet 1) to the Guidelines for applicants for the total duration of the action and for its first 12months. For further information see the Guidelines for grant applicants (Section 2.1.4).


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Indirect investment from IITK

Provision of specialist equipment5% for 7DOF Powercube robot (40,000 Euro) 0.15 40000 60005% of Patrolbot (30000 Euro) 0.15 30000 45005% of IRB 6 DOF robot (21000 Euro) 0.15 21000 31505% of Visual Servoing equipment (40,000 Euro) 0.15 40000 6000

Total 19650 Euro

Indirect investment from UB

Provision of specialist equipmentAccess to special computer cluster from 22 nodes to 200 nodes: 60000 Euro

Total 60,000 Euro


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3. DESCRIPTION OF APPLICANT

3.1 When was your organisation founded and when did it start its activities?

The organization was founded in 1959 and the activities started in 1960.

3.2 What are the main activities of your organisation at present?

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) is carrying out original research of significance and technologydevelopment at the cutting edge. It imparts training to students to make them competent, motivated engineers andscientists. The Institute not only celebrates freedom of thought, cultivates vision and encourages growth, but also

inculcates human values and concern for the environment and the society. IITK has been consistently rated asnumber one tech. school in India and the institute has been playing an important role in scientific and technologicalinnovation that has a global impact. The vision of IIT Kanpur is also to be recognized globally for excellence inresearch & development. The institute strives for achieving a lead position in the basic as well as applied research,both at the national and international levels.

The challenge in technology oriented research is to discover new knowledge and apply it to the invention anddevelopment of new processes and products. At present, the research is being conducted at several levels,starting from micro-level, dealing with molecules and living cells, to the macro-level involving processes andproducts. Meeting this challenge requires combining the efforts of researchers in several science and engineeringfields in collaboration with other academic institution, R&D organizations and industries.

In the recent few years, several cross disciplinary research areas emerged at the institute such as: computationalfluid dynamics, environmental engineering, bio-engineering, cognitive science, quantum computing, nano-scienceand technology, display technology, spintronics, rail safety and cyber security. The institute has added severalcentralized facilities to promote such interdisciplinary research.

The research profile of the institute is continuously growing every year. At any time the faculty and researchengineers/scientists are engaged in carrying out about 400 sponsored projects and almost an equal number of


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3.3 List of the management board / committee of your organisation

Name Profession Nationality PositionYears onthe board

Dr. M. Anandakrishnan Chairperson, Madras Instituteof Development Studies

79, Second Main Road,Gandhinagar, Adyar, Chennai- 600 020

Tamil Nadu, India

Indian Chairman,Board of Governors(BOG)

One year

Dr. Sanjay G. Dhande Director, IIT, Kanpur Indian Member,BOG

5 Years

Dr. G.K. Mehta Eminent ScientistDepartment of Atomic Energy

Nuclear Science Center

New Delhi

Indian Member,BOG

3 years

Dr. S. Lele Director Institute of TechnologyBanaras Hindu UniversityVaranasi

Indian Member,BOG

3 years

Mr. Anil. D. Ambani Vice-Chairman & Managing Indian Member, 3 years


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International Project 2 (2004-2007)

ARPET II ( Asian Regional Programme on Environmental Technology Phase II) http://www.arrpet.ait.ac.th/

4.1.6 the object and location of the action: IITK, IIT, Mumbai, India, Lund Institute, Sweden, Vanlang

University Vietnam, King Mongkut University of Technology, Thailand, AIT Thaliand.4.1.7 the results of the action: The project is about the treatment of domestic waste water in India. The

project work is still going on. ARRPET I was initiated to conduct a study to assess the growingconcern on environmental degradation in Asia by a working group, each tackling a specific problem ina structured manner. Funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida ) andco-ordinated by Asian Institute of Technology ( AIT), ARRPET involves National Research Institutions(NRIs) from 8 Asian countries namely, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka,Thailand, and Vietnam. ARRPET II aims at application of results from ARRPET I at pilot scale . Theactivities in ARRPET Phase II will be carried out from January 1, 2004 December 31, 2007.

4.1.8 your organisation's role (lead manager or partner) and its degree of involvement in the action: Prof.Saumen Guha is coordinating this project as the principal investigator. Details can be found athttp://www.arrpet.ait.ac.th/wwtm/team.html

4.1.9 the cost of the action: Rupees 7.5 million.

4.1.10 donors to the action (name, amount contributed) : SIDA, Rupees 7.5 Million


4.1.11 the object and location of the action: Joint venture between IITK and Neurogen, USA.

4.1.12 the results of the action: Synthesis of nearly 120 compounds.

4.1.13 your organisation's role (lead manager or partner) and its degree of involvement in the action: Prof.Vinod K. Singh is acting as principal investigator.
http://www.sida.se/http://www.ait.ac.th/http://www.ait.ac.th/http://www.arrpet.ait.ac.th/index.htmhttp://www.arrpet.ait.ac.th/index.htmhttp://www.sida.se/http://www.ait.ac.th/http://www.arrpet.ait.ac.th/index.htm


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A project funded by Welcome Trust, UK in Bio-medical science4.1.21 the results of the action: The project is about Structural studies on GTPases and EDG family G-

Protein coupled receptors. The work is in progress.

4.1.22 your organisation's role: Dr. Balaji Prakash is executing the project as the principal investigator.


4.1.24 donors to the action: Welcome Trust, UK

International Project 6 (2004-2008)A project funded by Welcome Trust, UK in Bio-medical science

4.1.25 the object and location of the action: Title: Development of ultra-fast pulse shaping based highresolution infra-red imaging instrument for cancer diagnostics and their possible elimination. Location:The project is being carried out in IITK

4.1.26 the results of the action: The work is in progress. Here is the summary:

Optical imaging by benign subpicosecond broadband IR laser pulses can be used for Multi-Photon Imaging (MPI).MPI provides several advantages over MRI techniques, like its higher resolution, freedom from MR magnet bore or application on patients with pacemakers. However, its biomedical application demands discrimination of signalsfrom scattered light on one hand and limiting pulse distortions caused by the passage of IR laser through sampleon the other. The latter improvisation is necessary to achieve delivery of high photon flux needed for in vivo MPI.Accurate measurement of absorbance changes is also important for a meaningful application of MPI. Propagationdistortions make it impossible to deliver high enough IR sub-pico-second pulses for multiphoton imagingapplications. The aim of this proposal has been to use a computer controlled Ultra-fast tunable acousto-Opticmodulated pulse-Shaper (UTOPS) to enhance throughput for ultra-fast laser pulses through dense tissue andoptical fiber. This would substantially further the current capabilities. The pre-compensation approaches developed


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4.1.29 donors to the action: Welcome Trust, UK

4.2. Resources

.2..1 Annual income over the last three years, mentioning where applicable for each year, the names of themain financial backers and the proportion of annual income each has contributed

IITK is a public organization which is completely funded by Ministry of Human Resources and Development(MHRD), India. Annual income of the institute in last three years is given as follows:

Year Non-plan Budget Plan Budget Internal Resources Grand Total

2003-04 Rupees 680 million Rupees 206 million Rupees 171 million Rupees 1057 million



In addition the institute received an annual funding of Rupees 500 million for various sponsored projects andconsultancies in the year 2004-05. This figure always increases every year.

2..2 Financial data. Please provide the following information on the basis of the profit and loss account

and balance sheet of your organisationYear Turnover or

equivalent Net earningsor equivalent

Total balancesheet or budget

Shareholdersequity or

equivalent

Mediumand long-term debt

Short-termdebt

(< 1 year)

N


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IITK is self-sufficient to implement a project of this size.

5. OTHER APPLICATIONS MADE TO EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS, THE EUROPEANDEVELOPMENT FUND (EDF) AND EU MEMBER STATES

5.1 Grants, contracts and loans obtained over the last three years from European Institutions, the EDF andEU Member States. The applicant may list only actions in the same field as this proposal.

Country of intervention EC budget line, EDF or EU Member States

Amount (EUR) Year obtained


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III. PARTNERS OF THE APPLICANT PARTICIPATING IN THE ACTION

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTNERS

Partner 1

Full legal name (businessname)

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Nationality Indian

Legal status Higher Education Institute (Public Organization fully funded byMinistry of Human Resource Development, India)

Official address IIT, Kanpur, 208 016, UP India

Contact person Dr. Laxmidhar Behera

Telephone number +91-5127198

Fax number +91-5120063

E-mail address [email protected]

Number of employees 1175

Other relevant resources Rupees 1711 million income in 2005-06


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2. PARTNERSHIP STATEMENT


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1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTNERS

Partner 2


International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Nationality Indian

Legal status Deemed University

Official address International Institute of Information Technology

Gachibowli, Hyderabad, (A.P.), INDIA-500 032

Contact person K. Madhaba Krishna

Telephone number 91-40-23001967 (Extn: 269)

Fax number 91-40-23001413



Other relevant resources 22.7 million Indian Rupees in 2005/06

Experience of similar actions, in relation to role in

One of the consortium university members for a project involving 12universities for optical character recognition for digital libraries


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DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTNERS

Partner 3


University of Bremen

Nationality Germany

Legal status GOV

Official address University of Bremen, Institut fr Automatisierungstechnik, NW1 /FB1, Otto-Hahn-Alle 1, 28359 Bremen

Contact person Prof. Dr. Axel Grser

Telephone number +49 (0) 421 218 7326 / secretary: 7523

Fax number +49 (0) 421 218 4596 / 4707



Other relevant resources


EU-TOK-BrainRobot


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DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTNERS

Partner 5


The University of Birmingham

Nationality British

Legal status Higher Education Institute (Public Organisation)

Official address Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Contact person Professor Xin Yao

Telephone number +44 121 414 3747

Fax number +44 121 414 2799



Other relevant resources 334 million income in 2004/05


The University of Birmingham manages 73.6 million researchgrants and contracts in 2004/05, and is very experienced in
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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IV. ASSOCIATES OF THE APPLICANT PARTICIPATING IN THE ACTION

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE ASSOCIATES

This section must be completed for each associated organisation within the meaning of section 2.1.2 of theGuidelines for Applicants. You must make as many copies of this table as necessary to create entries for moreassociates.

Associate 1


FWBI - Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel InstitutForschungsgesellschaft m. b. H

Nationality Germany

Legal status eGmbH

Official address Wilseder Berg Str. 528329 BremenGermany

Contact person Prof. Dr. A. Schne

Telephone number +49 421 218 9468

Fax number +49 421 218 2934


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V. CHECKLIST

ASIA-LINK PROGRAMME, 5 TH CALL FOR PROPOSALS - BUDGET LINE 19.1002

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA To be filled in by the applicant

Name of the Applicant Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Nationality IndianLegal Entity Sheet number 3

Legal status 4 Public Organization (Fully funded by Ministry of Human Resource Development, India)

Date of establishment of the organization

Partner 1 Name: Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Nationality: Indian

Legal status: Government Organization (Fully funded by Ministry of Human Resource Development, India)

Partner 2 Name: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Nationality: Indian

Legal status: Deemed University

Partner 3 Name: University of Bremen

Nationality: Germany

Legal status: GOV

Partner 4 Name: University of Ulster, Magee Campus, UK

Nationality: BritishLegal status: Public Organization

3 If the applicant has already signed a contract with the European Commission4 E.g. non profit making, governmental body, international organisationAsia-Link Programme: Application Form, 5 th Call for Proposals, 2006 Page 62

BEFORE SENDING YOUR PROPOSAL PLEASE CHECK THAT EACH OF THE FOLLOWING T b fill d i b T b fill d i b


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Partner 5 Name: The University of Birmingham

Nationality: British

Legal status: Higher Education Institute (Public Organisation)

Partner 6 Name: Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal

Nationality: Nepalease

Legal status: GOV

Title of the Proposal A Collaborative Academic Program for Innovation in Intelligent Assistive Robotics

Asia-Link Programme: Application Form, 5 th Call for Proposals, 2006 Page

BEFORE SENDING YOUR PROPOSAL, PLEASE CHECK THAT EACH OF THE FOLLOWINGCOMPONENTS IS COMPLETE AND RESPECTS THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA :

To be filled in bythe applicant

To be filled in bythe EuropeanCommission

Yes No Yes No

1. The correct grant application form, published for this call for proposals, has been used Yes

2. The proposal is typed and is in English Yes

3. One original and one copy are included Yes

4. Two floppy disks or Cd-Roms are enclosed Yes

5. Each partner has completed and signed a partnership statement and the statements are included (if any). Yes

6. The budget is presented in the format requested, is expressed in EURO and is enclosed Yes

7. The logical framework has been completed and is enclosed Yes

8. The duration of the action is equal to or lower than 36 months (the maximum allowed) Yes

9. The duration of the action is equal to or higher than 12 months (the minimum allowed) Yes

10. The requested contribution is equal to or higher than EUR 200 000 (the minimum allowed) Yes

11. The requested contribution is equal to or lower than EUR 750 000 (the maximum allowed) Yes

12. The requested contribution is equal to or lower than 75 % of the total eligible costs, or 90% of the total eligiblecosts if all Asian partners are from least developed countries), or 100% if all Asian partners are from Maldives,Indonesia (Aceh and North Sumatra), Sri Lanka (all coastal districts except Mannar), Thailand (Ranong, Phangnga,Phuket, Krabi, Trang, Satun) and India (coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala states; Andamanand Nicobar islands)

Yes

13. The Declaration by the applicant has been filled in and has been signed Yes

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Asia-Link Programme: Application Form, 5 th Call for Proposals, 2006 Page 64


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VII. ASSESSMENT GRID(FOR THE USE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION ONLY)

YES NO

1. The Deadline has been respected

2. The Application form satisfies all the criteria mentioned in the Checklist (Section V of the Grant application form).

The verification of the Checklist has been conducted by On the ..

DECISION 1: The Committee has decided to recommend the Concept Note for Evaluation after having passed the Administrativecheck.(If not, reasons must be encoded in the Administrative check Grid in CRIS and in the Administrative Check report in CRIS).

DECISION 2: The Committee has approved the Concept Note and decided to proceed with the evaluation of the full proposalafter having pre-selected the best Concept Notes.

(If not, reasons must be encoded in the Concept Note Evaluation Grid in CRIS this includes the evaluation sheet for assessors anddelegations, in the Concept Note Evaluation report and in the letters sent out to applicants.)

YES NO

DECISION 3: A. The Committee has recommended the proposal for Eligibility verification after having been provisionallyselected within the top ranked scored proposals and within the available financial envelope.(If not, reasons must be encoded in the Evaluation Grid in CRIS this includes the evaluation sheet for experts and delegations, in theEvaluation report and in the letters sent out to applicants.)

B. The Committee has recommended the proposal for Eligibility verification after having been put in the reservelist should any provisionally selected proposal fail to fulfil the eligibility verification, according to the top ranked scored proposalsand within the available financial envelope.(If not, reasons must be encoded in the Evaluation Grid in CRIS this includes the evaluation sheet for experts and delegations, in theTechnical Evaluation report and in the letters sent out to applicants.)

Asia-Link Programme: Application Form, 5 th Call for Proposals, 2006 Page 65


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