Wednesday, July 22, 2009

GajRaj: An autonomous vehicle using image processing

'GajRaj'... What is there in name !
Here , Everything there is in name.



'GajRaj' is the one of the biggest robot presented ever in IIT Kharagpur . This robot is presented in '8mile' by a team of IIITM consisting of Vishal Pradhan (Team Leader, IPG2005), Nishant Kolhe(IPG2008), Shashank(IPG2008), Manish Sharma(IPG2008), Shashank Sukumaran(IPG2008) in Kshitij 2009 and won third prize there.

PROJECT DETAILS

1) Name of the Project : Wall-E


2) Brief description (200 words) : Our project is a three wheeler petrol driven autonomous vehicle, which is designed to run on road, follow divider lines , detect zebra crossing and traffic signals (red & green lights ).It has a 55 cc two stroke engine which runs on petrol and has three powerful servo motors for steering ,acceleration and brake ,attached onto it for precise navigation .It also has a laptop stand attached onto it so that a laptop could be mounted whenever we need to run it on road .The laptop (when mounted) is attached to a PCB (Printed Circuit Board ) via serial port which acts as servo motor controller and gives the commands to the respective servo motors which are being executed by MATLAB(Image analysis & processing tool) on the laptop .It also has three separate high quality cameras(CCD camera & two webcams) for lane detection & traffic light detection respectively attached onto it .The most important and the most

astonishing part of our project is that each and every component of the hardware was carefully handpicked by us from the scrap market (popularly known as LOHIA BAZAR in Gwalior) and was welded and fitted by us .It took approximately 60 days and not mention nights (J) to execute this project.


3) Technical Details :( pictures, principles, circuit/block diagrams, drawings, etc.)

a)The following are the pictures (in different views) of our project :

i) complete bot on the road ( with all components )





ii) Complete bot (With all servo motors indicated )





iii) Complete bot (with lane detection and backup camera indicated)



iv) Complete bot (with PCB, laptop, TV tuner, and over head camera for traffic light

detection indicated)



v) Complete bot ( Zoom view with all hardware visible)



b) Principles used:


i) Internal Combustion Engine & Secondary chassis: The engine can be considered as the heart of hardware and it has the following technical specifications:

· Number of cylinders –One

· Fuel used in the engine –Petrol+20cc oil

· Horse power(B.H.P)-49.5

· Cubic capacity (of cylinder)-55 cc.

The engine operates in four different stages i.e. (injection, compression, ignition, and exhaust) and thus provides the required torque to the primary sprocket/gear which is connected to a smaller secondary sprocket through a chain assembly (this system of gears is used because the efficiency of this system is very high (~60-70%) as compared to other gear systems and it’s also simple to implement as far as the practical application is

concerned), the secondary sprocket is fixed to the rear axle ,which passes through two ball bearings ,which are part of Secondary chassis . This secondary chassis’s main task is to

keep the two tires and the engine stable , and in order to accomplish that we have attached

many support bars which you can easily observe in figure iv).



ii) Servo Motors: These are one of the most important components of the system and are used to navigate (steer, accelerate and brake )the bot .The system has used three servo motors (one mounted at the top of steering neck i.e. steering motor, and two mounted onto the inclined neck i.e. acceleration and braking motor as shown in figure ii) above. The servo

motors are used where we need highly precise turns and high torques(as close to 5 degrees or even less..) , each servo has three terminals i.e. (Vcc, Vgnd & control line terminal), the first two terminals are used for supplying power whereas the magnitude of impulse (in ms) at the third terminal decides the degree of revolution of the motor. The shaft from the motor is connected to circular shaped plastic assembly onto which a wire(i.e. acceleration and brake wire) is attached ,the linear displacement(x) of the wire is related to the angular displacement β of the motor by the relation X=Rβ .From this relation we can easily calculate β max, βmin from Xmax and Xmin respectively.



iii) Printed Circuit Board (PCB): The PCB is responsible for controlling the servo motors; it is connected to the laptop via serial to usb converter. It acts as an interface between laptop and servo motors. The laptop processes the image using MATLAB and sends the signals to PCB where the microcontroller process it and pass the control signals(PWM) to the required servo motor for the required function ( i.e. Breaks, Steering and Acceleration). The detailed figure of PCB is shown below:-






4) Applications of the project : (Expose innovation and commercial applicability)

The aim of the project was to build a system that helps navigate a vehicle by computer aided vision. Our project can be used as basis for further development of ‘smart’ robots for the army as well as for the civil world. Our project can have many useful applications like:

1) Transportation for the Handicapped: the bot can be used as transportation by a slight modification, into a manual robot, by using a joystick, or a few push buttons to control it. Even as an autonomous robot it can be used for the paralyzed, it can transport the paralyzed from one point to another as it can move in traffic, and such.

2) Military Applications: Our bot can be used as an autonomous combat vehicle which can search and intrude enemy’s/terrorists outfits where a manned mission could lead to fatal causalities .The bot will detect enemy’s/terrorists uniform by capturing and processing image’s pixel.

3) Super Market: Our bot can be used in super market for commercial purpose. The bot can follow a white circle with stoppage at various checkpoints from which various items can be loaded into its carts and from there it can take them to the scanning point where the bill can be prepared.

4) Industries: Our bot can be used in various Plants. It can be used to transport/deliver goods and raw materials from one end of the plant to another. The bot can follow the white lane and can stop at red lights to deliver or take goods.


5) Infrastructure requirements: (computer, supplies, etc.)

1) 1 laptop (1GB DDR2 RAM,2ghz centrino, 1 serial port,2 usb ports) with MATLAB

Installed.

2) 1 TV Tuner card (analog to digital converter).

3) Serial to USB port converter.

4) Printed Circuit Board having the following components :

a) 1 AT89C52 16bit µcontroller.

b) 1 RS 232 IC.

c) 1 16 MHz Oscillator.

d) 1 7805CT transistor (for providing constant voltage (5V)).

e) 4 I/O pins (for connecting servo motors and power supply).

f) 1 Heat sink.

g) 6 (10µF, 50volts, 85 ‘C) cylindrical capacitors+ 3 paper capacitors.

h) 2 kill switches (one for applying full brakes and another for zero acceleration).

i) 1 servo motor reset switch.

j) Jump wires.

5) 1 soldering iron (with flux and soldering wire included).

6) 6volt rechargeable battery with charger (for supplying power to PCB & servo motors.

7) Connecting cables.

8) Steel grip tape.

9) Scrap wire.

10) 9volt battery (for providing power supply to CCD camera).












































6) Components involved:

COMPONENTS COST

1) 2-stroke engine+carburettor+ spark plug +silencer Rs.900

2) 3-old Tires Rs.390(3*130 each)

3) Servo motors

a) Steering motor Rs 1450

b) Acceleration motor Rs 750

c) Braking motor Rs 750

1) Primary chassis Rs 450

2) Secondary chassis (rear support system) Rs 350

3) Ball bearings Rs 50 (Rs25*2each)

4) Rear Axle Rs 90

5) Laptop Stand Rs 150

6) Cameras

a)CCD camera Rs 1200

b)Traffic light webcam Rs 750

10) Rear Suspension Rs 70

11)Nuts and bolts Rs 50(Rs5*10)

12)Front Suspension Rs 40(Rs20*2)

13) Petrol tank Rs 20

14) Alternator Rs 25

15)Chain assembly Rs 410

(primary sprocket +secondary sprocket + chain)

16) Old brake shoe Rs 80

17) Other expenses Rs 750(approx)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TOTAL EXPENSE: Rs 8675(approx)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Sunday, July 19, 2009

Is the Ranking of Institutions/colleges exclude making confusion predominantly?

Sometimes espousing for a real slang, endorses attention transmutation in Toto. The same pulsation is beating this time for IIITM Gwalior.

One of our authors initiated a thread on a social networking forum on exclusion of many MHRD Institutions like IIITM Gwalior from top 75 Engg Insti/coll in India, in 2009, published by Outlook India.

After reading the same thread , many eloquent writers are taking their stands and flaying the magazine with their animadversions.Some allusions of such kind of initiations are here for the reference:

missing text...

...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Leading The Way in IT and Management Education : An interview with IIITM Director

This interview is originally published in 'Digital Learning' Magazine.
Here is the original content:


...

Read the article at this link

Monday, July 13, 2009

From TOI Archive: ACM ICPC 2009



...

Read the article at this link

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Economic Times Power of Ideas contest 2009: IIITM students are making their mark

"I did something that challenged the banking world. Conventional banks look for the rich; we look for the absolutely poor. All people are entrepreneurs, but many don't have the opportunity to find that out."
-Muhammad Yunus

This is all about grabbing small opportunities and converting those into bigger. Just turn your sight to the other side of the things, you would find many such opportunities.

Only one out of 20 business plans are read by prospective investors beyond the executive summary and only 6 out of 1000 business plans get funded on an average. The quality of the business plan is crucial for winning attention of investors, especially for a first-time entrepreneur who has no track record in managing own business. It is not only important for a business plan to have the right content, but it also must be organized into logical and clearly defined sections and presented in a way that is informative and maintains readers interest.


Economic Times Power of Ideas contest 2009 where our students have made it to finals of the contest among the best 254 to reach the VCs from Angel Investment Group in India. The contest is still going on and the results are awaited.

A team consisting of Mayur Gupta, Pranjal Prashar, Bharat Jain, Bhumpalle Vidya (all IPG2004 Batch) and Dr. P.K. Das (Associate Professor IIT Guwahati) has made into final 254.

"The Power of Ideas" was organized by Economic times in association with Indian Angel Network.
Purpose of this contest was to help entrepreneurs by providing them a platform where they can share their ideas with VCs and angel investors, and can get funds if viable.
First round of the contest witnessed more than 11,000 entries from all over India. ( see ideas.economictimes.com for complete analysis)
however 1000 entries moved to the next level where after a group mentoring session participants made Pitch on a telephonic conference with IAN members.

In the next round 254 entries made to the final list of the contest where after a personal mentoring session of a week participants submitted their B-plan and made face to face presentation with IAN members.

Now IAN will decide upon funding issue. Contest is over, now IAN will contact 'investible' B-plans.

P.S.: To read Pranjal's (one of the participants) experience about competition, you can follow here.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Is the Ranking of Institutions/colleges money making business ?

This topic is originally posted on Barkha Dutt's community on Orkut by one of our authors. Here is the original post with interesting replies:

"invisible Mithilesh

Is the Ranking of colleges money making business ?

It's Addmission time for all the graduate and post graduate colleges in India.
In this big moment for dreamy talents every tom, dick and harry in Education industry are grossing there profits.
Most of the time students got confuzed due to Ranking of Isnti. Some of the insti are good for nothing but still they have been ranked high and hence attract good students.
Some of the old MHRD sponsored Insti like IIITM Gwalior(http://www.iiitm.ac.in/) is missing in the list. What dose it all mean ???
I would like to bring attentions of honest CNN- IBN reporters to bring some exploring results .
Thanks and Regards.
*Jun 25 (4 days ago)

It is definitely a big scam. These magazines/newspapers that put out these rankings earn money through ads. So if XYZ college put loads of ads in a magazine, why wouldn't the college get a better ranking?

The most reliable ranking is that by The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Actually, it does not rank but gives a grade (like AAA). The best grade indicates an excellent institute. I don't blindly support Government bodies but this won is autonomous and is more reliable that private rankings.
*Jun 26 (3 days ago)

Why do you need ranking ?

The basic and only purpose of Colleges should be Parting knowledge and certificate of knowledge achieved.

Why should one need rankings unless you want to make Colleges a money making institution..in that case they should be taxed.
*Jun 26 (3 days ago)

Another Crap

http://www.outlookindia.com/rantsmag.asp?fodname=20090622&fname=ALead+Essay+(F)&sid=2
see here ...
this year result
??
still nt able to find the reason y IIITM Gwalior is excluded ?? :X
For more reference about IIITM see here ,where we stand :
http://iiitm.blogspot.com/2009/06/iiitm-gwalior-is-among-top-8-institutes.html
Jun 28 (1 day ago)

Whenever a magazine runs a rating exercise, they will seek institutions response.

If institution does not give its response or not interested in the rating exercise, the institute is exempted.

may be IITM exclusion is for the above.

The idea of ranking is to keep the students informed. while ranking, the magazine will also publish the factors considered for ranking etc.

instead of just going by the rank...students can see the factors on which scoring is done and finalise their priority.
*Jun 28 (1 day ago)

Why don you think the other way, its rather helps students to choose there college. Above all, colleges are rated with respect to the infrastructure, the faculty, number of students making into top notch companies, etc..etc..
I feel its helping students and parents, guiding them to good colleges.
Regarding IIITM Gwalior(http://www.iiitm.ac.in/) missing in the list, really confusing that a premier institute like IIITM has not been listed, also raising questions like on what basis the ranking is being made. Well, the thread creator has made a valid point, some one should monitor this ranking system for sure.
*11:59 am (11 hours ago)


What will a College get - if ranked higher ?

Why Colleges need ranking ?
*10:37 pm (1 hour ago)

A valid Question !!!

There are clearly two gain for colleges if they are ranked high or low :
1. Short term,
2.Long Term

1. Short term:
In short term gain if a particular coll/insti is ranked high, then it will attract high ranker students, industry partners etc.
If the certain coll is ranked low and if it's old institution of national importance then it'll list affected, and if that coll is new then it will show negative impact on overall brand image.
So, in short term benefit college will attract talented students in particular year.

2.Long Term
The long term benefit is only for those colleges those are really deserving their ranking .
For private money making institutions the effect is same, they have to rely on their ad campaign in media.
*11:53 pm (2 minutes ago)

Another Reference

See some IIITM Gwalior's achievements here:
ABV-IIITM Students bring Laurels in ICPC World Finals Held in Stock Holm
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/acm/
*11:56 pm (0 minutes ago)"

http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/acm/


Click to chat tapas

Well the insitutes like IITs and IIITs and IIITMs do not need a ranking to show that they are best in their respective domians but the point is when a premier institute does not turns up in such rankings then it means such magazines are misleading some of the students who might not be aware of good options to make their career hence mithilesh your point is very valid as are these rankings just a money making business
you can read the following links
which were old news and the best of talent had competed
A team of IPG 2003 students from IIITM Gwalior Anuj Kumar Goyal, Kunal Garg, Mohit Garg has one first prize in Open Source Software contest 2006-07 beating the best of the institutes of country like IIT Bombay and various other NIT's to see these links at bottom move your mouse button over the red colored text.
http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/showRhsResult.do
These links were posted on 12th October 07 .If you are looking it at a later date and in case they do not work click here Google search .
Just to tell you these were the ranks year 2006 we got first prize at then here is a link
http://www-07.ibm.com/in/university/greatmind/top5team.html
and there are more news recently from the institute
*11:54 am (14 minutes ago)


Jun 30 (1 day ago)
Abhishek Mumbai

Ranking attracts Talented students..

Quite an irony !!!

If a good college can not polish average students, and they can only teach students who are already sharp and talented.. then what its good for ????????


Jun 30 (1 day ago)
tapas

Do average students reach IITs ?
Go and ask this question to the graduates of IITs,IIMs,IIITs where top 1% brains of country reach.
One can see JEE,AIEEE opening and closing ranks or ask US universities which after receiving so many applications from GRE aspirants ask for Recos,CGPA,Scores I don't think average students reach there.
Well the institutes like IITs, IIITs and IIITMs do not need rankings to show that they are best in their respective domains its an irony that a premier institute does not turns up in such rankings so that it self questions the genuineness of such rankings.


Jun 30 (1 day ago)
tapas

As far as IIITM is concerned there are many links which one can search
where the students have been giving promising results year after year which have been even recognized via the corporate groups
Check these
1 )http://www-07.ibm.com/in/university/greatmind/top5team.html
you can see rank 1 on above link was IIITM 2007
Contest was organized via IBM
2) Following link from google
http://www.google.com/search?q=+lord+of+the+code+iiit+gwalior&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8
just confirm from the Eklavya at IIT B
announces team from IIITM Gwalior as winner of Open Source Software Contest
Sponsored by Red Hat and KReSIT, IIT Bombay
3) Microsoft's Code4Bill where students make it to top 20 from the country
4) ACM ICPC international programming contest 2009 world finals
5) Economic Times Power of Ideas contest 2009 where students have made it to finals of the contest among the best contest to reach the VCs from Angel Investment Group in India the contest is still going on results awaited
There are more links for many more results exist.
Visit the International Journals and Conferences from ACM,IEEE,DMIN where students from the institute year after year have been able to publish research papers in their domains which are internationally recognized via concerned communities.
When students from an institute are giving year after year promising results if you talk in terms of infrastructure,faculty,course, students, the competition they face to enter IIT JEE or AIEEE or the results which they are giving ,how do these results missed from IIITM when such rankings are made.

.
Jul 2 (21 hours ago)
Abhishek Mumbai

IIT - No Contribution

The IITs are the most honored and valued technical institute of India. But the number IItians involved in Building a new India is same or even less other technical institutes.

IIT is more of a pride, less of a contribution !!!


Jul 3 (17 hours ago)
Sushobhan

See, the reason the IITs are given so much hype is because of their entrance exam, which is one of the hardest in the world. They take in very bright students, polish them a little bit, and send out very bright (post)graduates.

The reason these rankings flourish in India is because we LOVE to compare things. It is very easy to rank first and then provide methodology and other details. Sadly, most parents believe in such rankings and don't care to cross-check. And that's why this ranking-business is flourishing. Haven't you seen IIPM's ads?!



8:52 pm (0 minutes ago)

Mithilesh

The pain of 'Haunted' Talents

Increased aggressive marketing of so called money making institution like IIPM, VIT, Bharti Vidyapith,Amity uni. have made negative impact on the minds of budding talents of our country.
Sometimes deserving talents prefer these business academy over institution of national importance. Due to their immature decision they land themselves into a provocative environment where everything prevails except study.

At later state they start trying to mock themselves like other highly donated upper cremey layer students.

And finally they misled themselves into darker world of never ending desires where placement, package are everything.

I fill piety for these youths of the nation.

Hope, one day these money making institutions will start promoting 'The Vikram Sarabhai' in their campuses.

God Save Indian Institution of Education!

Amen!


3:24 pm (3½ hours ago)
looking for a

Mithilesh, In case of IIITM it is the institute that refrained from being in the rankings.. If some surveyor or magazine comes and asks for permission, the institute decides whether to participate or not.

Here IIITM opted out of rankings coz they r sponsored most of the time. The more ads and more money u give the better rank they might give. And they give some good institutes better rankings irrespective of the money to make people believe they r genuine.

So it's the institute's responsibility and as well as the student's to make advertise in such a way that these surveyors cannot ignore .. That's how it should be done..




busy Mithilesh4:40 pm (2 hours ago)


Why Do we need advertisement ?

I think ad and advertisement must be excluded from insti activity domain.
The achievements of these very isntis speaks everything....
They are simply the best in their field.
Who will ignore them


6:38 pm (4 minutes ago)Abhishek Mumbai

All Colleges Advertising should be taxed

If the Colleges are advertising then it should be taxed as they are looking to make profit out of a non-Profit domain.


IIITM Gwalior is among Top 8 Institutes of Higher Education in India

Another feather in the cap for IIITM Gwalior is here.
IIITM Gwalior has been listed among Top 8 Institutes of Higher Education in India by High Commission of India, London.
Here is the complete list :

Institutes of Higher Education:



*For more details, you can see here.
*To read more about High Commission's view about IIITM , you can click here.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Ashok Kumar Dwivedi@Aurora-06,IIITM,Gwalior

Memoirs of a student - Last days at IIITM

My five years at IIITM, it felt like a lifetime, and passed too quickly. 

I was one of the few residents who stayed at the hostel even during holidays and breaks. And wherever I went; a holiday, an internship, a field study; no matter how hard things were, I was always with the insurance that no matter what, I always have IIITM to go back to. It was a haven, a sanctuary. 

It was frightening how events began to break loose at an alarming rate when those final days approached: exams, projects, cases, presentation, farewells, placements, celebrations, and the biggest of them all, the thesis! All of us running hither and thither, giving a last touch to everything. 

Dear reader, may you never feel what I once felt during those last days of parting at the end of my five year integrated post gruaduate course. It was the culmination of a lifetime of fun, friendship and learning. And to realise that it was to end so soon, I wanted nothing more then to leave the place, not take a second glance back, and never to think of it again; not because I was happy to go away, but because, to have a glance back would have broken my spirit and dissolved me into tears. 

I miss the security, the fun, the friends and the learnings, all of which I had taken them for granted to be a part of my life, and I well know how it feels to have suddenly taken those away and see them deserting me. Till this day, I remember what it felt like to be a IIITMian. I remember. 
The writer is an alumni of IIITM, and a student at IIMB

ACM-ICPC comes to ABV-IIITM, Gwalior

And it arrives, in about time.

ACM, The Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession.

The ACM-ICPC, is the Inter-collegiate Programming contest, which is held annually, for teams of 3 university/college students involving algorithmic programming problems. The contest is considered to be the "Olympics of Computer Programming".The Regional Finals would be held on the 3rd and 4th October, 2009. Each Regional finals selects one team as winner of the site and will be eligible to participate in the world finals This year, the world finals will be held in April, 2010 at Harbin Engineering University, Harbin (China).

After the immense success in the previous year's ACM-ICPC held at the Kanpur site, (team brute force from ABV-IIITM, Gwalior wins the Regional finals to land in the World Finals, held at Stockholm, Sweden) the South Asian Kanpur-Gwalior site regionals would be held at ABV-IIITM, Gwalior. IIT-Kanpur has held the regional finals for ACM-ICPC for the past 10 years, and this is the first time that ABV-IIITM, Gwalior would be holding a regional finals for ACM-ICPC. (and many more in the future, hopefully)

A few details about the Regional finals, and how they go about it. Each participating team consists of at most 3 contestants and a coach from the same institution. Generally each team gets 6 to 8 problems to be solved within 5 hours. A team can submit the programs in C, C++ or in JAVA. As my experience as a participant, the tension is immense, and there's excitement throughout the 5 hours, which reaches its peak during the final ending minutes, when last minute submissions lead to a huge change in positions on the scoreboard. ( and as engineering students, we all know how that works! )

Saturday, June 27, 2009

IIITM MBA admission, A major Change: Successfull completion of GD/PI @ Three different locations

Experimenting with new format, maintaining it's competitive edge, first time in the history of admission IIITM Gwalior conducted interviews at locations other than Gwalior.This year the MBA interviews were conducted at Hyderabad, Bangalore & Guwahati on 13th June, 2009 (Saturday).

This is also the first time when IIITM Gwalior started accepting MCA as qualifying examination. Following is the official press release for the recently concluded MBA admission .

"MBA ADMISSIONS 2009-2010

Atal Bihari Vajpayee-Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior, an autonomous Institute of Govt. of India, has invited applications for admission to its MBA Programme for 2009-11.

Those with valid CAT/JMET score and Bachelor Degree in any branch of Engineering/Technology or Master Degree in Computer Applications (MCA) recognized by AICTE with at least 60% marks or its equivalent grade (6.75 CGPA on a 10 point scale), are eligible to apply.

Those appearing for their final examination in the academic session 2008-09 are also eligible to apply. Relaxation to SC/ST/OBC/PH candidates will be as per GOI rules.

Those having CAT percentile 75 and above for General, 65 percentile for OBC and 55 percentile for SC/ST and JMET score of 60 percentage and above for General, 50 percentage for OBC and 40 percentage for SC/ST, may download the application form from www.iiitm.ac.in.

Duly filled application form should reach 'Assistant Registrar, ABV-IIITM, Morena Link Road, Gwalior-474010' along with a Bank Draft of Rs. 500/- (Rs. 250/-for SC/ST candidates) drawn in favor of The Director, ABV-IIITM, Gwalior payable at Gwalior, latest by 6th June,2009

Interviews for selection will be conducted at Hyderabad, Bangalore & Guwahati on 13th June, 2009 (Saturday). Those who have applied earlier need not apply again.

Visit www.iiitm.ac.in for details."

Friday, June 26, 2009

On a lighter note



Alma Mater on a lighter note :D Found this rare pic in one of the old repository.

Update going on

IIITM Blog is getting updated, please bear for a while !

Edited
======

Update is complete. Thanks !