Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is a premier institute of science and technology established in 2008. IITH has been consistently ranked in the&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/reports/" rel="noopener noreferrer">top 10 institutes</a>&nbsp;in India for Engineering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nirfindia.org/2021/EngineeringRanking.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to NIRF</a>&nbsp;making it one of the most coveted schools for science and technology in the country.

IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/under-graduate/">undergraduate programs</a>&nbsp;in all the classical engineering disciplines, applied sciences, design, as well as several modern interdisciplinary areas. Students are given a flexibility to explore a broad set of areas, and potentially pursue a minor or double major in a discipline that is not their own. Students who wish to seek a deeper understanding of their own discipline are strongly encouraged to get involved in cutting-edge research with the help of a faculty to mentor them, and earn an Honors in their own field.

The very foundation of IIT Hyderabad is based on&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/">research and innovation</a>. The vibrant research culture is evident from the number of patents and publications that IITH produces consistently every year. IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/programmes-offered/">graduate programs</a>&nbsp;at both a masters, and a doctoral level, in several diverse areas. There are separate programs for technology, design, science, and liberal arts. The&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/post-graduate/">MTech program</a>&nbsp;is offered in various modes and durations to cater to the ever-growing need of postgraduate level professionals in the country.

IITH encourages and supports&nbsp;<a href="https://iic-iith.netlify.app/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">innovation and entrepreneurship</a>&nbsp;at every stage. The minor program in entrepreneurship is open to all students of IITH, and many of the courses are offered by industrialists who are entrepreneurs themselves. There are various&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/centres-incubators/">innovation centers and incubators</a>&nbsp;that promote entrepreneurship and help mentor young innovators. IITH has been very successful in building tie-ups with leading academic institutions around the globe.

IITH enjoys a very special relationship with Japanese universities and industries that goes beyond academic and research collaborations. In fact, some of the iconic buildings in IITH campus will carry the signature of Japanese architecture.

IITH creates a unique holistic ecosystem for education that offers interactive learning, a very flexible academic structure, cutting-edge research, strong industry collaboration, and entrepreneurship. This is an environment which enables students and faculty to translate their dreams into realities.

IIT Hyderabad

This paper presents a dynamic walking model with toed feet that can walk down a gentle slope under the action of gravity alone. The model is the simplest of its kind with a point mass at the hip and two rigid legs each hinged at the hip on one end and equipped with toed foot at the other end. We investigate two cases of the model, one with massless legs and another with infinitesimal leg masses. Rotation of the stance foot about the toe joint is initiated by ankle-strike, which is caused by the inelastic collision of the stance leg with a stop mounted on the stance foot. Numerical simulations of walking show that larger step lengths and higher speeds can be achieved than what is achievable by a point-feet walker of same hip mass and leg lengths. The characteristics of deterministic gait with infinitesimal leg masses is compared with that of nondeterministic gait with zero leg masses. It is shown that deterministic gait does not give maximum speed and efficiency compared to nondeterministic gait with swing leg control. Finally, active dynamic walking of the proposed walker is discussed. © 2008 IEEE.

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

World University root node

2008 8th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, Humanoids 2008

Simplest dynamic walking model with toed feet

This paper proposes a new tracking controller for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) using the concept of simultaneous quadratic stabilization. The nonlinear underwater vehicle system is viewed as a set of locally linear time invariant systems obtained by linearizing the system equations on the reference trajectory about some discrete points. A single stabilizing controller is then designed for the set of systems so obtained. However, this controller requires the exact parameters of the system. Since the hydrodynamic parameters of AUVs are generally not known with sufficient accuracy, the proposed controller is used for the known part of the dynamics and an adaptation algorithm is used to estimate the unknown parameters online and compensate for the rest of the plant dynamics. The proposed controller can thus adaptively handle the complete nonlinear uncertain dynamics of the plant. Simulation results are presented and discussed for a typical AUV. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, Transactions of the ASME

A new tracking controller design for underwater vehicles using quadratic stabilization

A biped/humanoid robot with toe and heel joints is capable of more natural locomotion due to the additional degrees of freedom available. Though passive spring loaded joints can help to some extent, they introduce constraints between the joint torque and the joint angular displacement. In this paper, we propose to use hybrid active/passive toe and heel joints in order to accommodate a wide range of step lengths and speeds as well as uneven terrain. The toe joints are spring loaded to minimize the maximum torque required and thus the amount of energy consumed when the toe actuator is maintaining the desired Zero Moment Point (ZMP). By controlling the torque produced at the toe joints, the ZMP of the biped robot is allowed to move smoothly from heel to toe during Single Support Phase (SSP) and from the toe of the trailing foot to the leading foot during Double Support Phase (DSP). Two different ZMP trajectories during toe support phase are compared. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is demonstrated through numerical simulations on a biped robot model. Finally, the use of heel joint is discussed in relation to providing additional support during double support phase, allowing larger step lengths, as well as absorbing impact during heel strike. © ICROS.

ICCAS 2007 - International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems

Hybrid toe and heel joints for biped/humanoid robots for natural gait

A new control scheme for robust trajectory control based on direct estimation of system dynamics is proposed for underwater vehicles. The proposed controller can work satisfactorily under heavy uncertainty that is commonly encountered in the case of underwater vehicle control. The dynamics of the plant are approximately canceled through the feedback of delayed accelerations and control inputs. Knowledge of the bounds on uncertain terms is not required. It is shown that only the rigid body inertia matrix is sufficient to design the controller. The control law is conceptually simple and computationally easy to implement. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated through simulations and implementation issues are discussed. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ocean Engineering

Robust trajectory control of underwater vehicles using time delay control law

When compared with the human arm, the low performances of robotic manipulators motivated the development of new mechanical structures. Joint-driven manipulators, with standard actuators, are not well adapted to the transients imposed by the robotic applications. The kinematic analysis of these systems highlights its main properties and constitutes a step towards the design of new mechanical biological-like robotic structures adopting linear actuators replacing the standard rotational joint-driving motor systems. PID tracking control of the arm was studied by implementing the biomechanical model of the forearm and hand. This model emphasizes the role of the visco-elastic properties of the musculo-skeletal system of the actual limb in controlling its net configuration and movement.

Annals of DAAAM and Proceedings of the International DAAAM Symposium

Development of a biomechanical model for a robotic manipulator

This paper discusses the application of time-delay control law for robust trajectory tracking control of underwater vehicles. The idea is based on the cancellation of uncertain dynamics in the plant by estimating a function which closely approximates the plant uncertainty at any given instant. This is done through the feedback of the derivative of the state and the previous control inputs. By deriving the controller in discretetime the necessity of using state derivative is removed. The controller is computationally simple and easy to implement. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated through simulations for various test conditions. © 2006 IEEE.

OCEANS 2006 - Asia Pacific

Robust tracking control of underwater vehicles using time-delay control in discrete-time domain

A thruster controlled AUV is being developed for the Indian AUV project. All motions and control is carried out by a set of five thrusters for controlling positions in two attitudes and three linear directions. As a prototype and verification system for the above AUV, a test-bed to develop and validate the control schemes was found necessary and has been developed at IIT Kharagpur. This paper describes the design criteria of the test-bed and the methods used to develop control scheme for such class of underwater vehicles, which are wholly thruster controlled and can be implemented in this test-bed. The design and capabilities of such a test-bed has been considered for taking into account similar thruster actuated AUVs which may be used in conditions like low speed motion as well as high maneuverability, station keeping etc. Such vehicles are different from the hydroplane controlled vehicles which are more effective above a certain operational velocity. The test-bed proposed here is targeted to generate valuable experimental data for full thruster controlled underwater vehicles operating over a range of operational velocities including station keeping to cruising modes. © 2006 IEEE.

Test-bed for navigation and control of a thruster based AUV

This paper deals with real-time optimal motion planning for astable AUVs, and presents an approximate analytical solution for the optimal control problem of a symmetric astable AUV with symmetric thruster configuration. The results show that the motion along the target vector is optimal for such underwater vehicles. The numerical solutions are found to be in good agreement with the approximate analytical solution. A relationship between the number of thrusters and the energy consumed is derived analytically for forward motion. The effect of the number of thrusters on optimality is shown to be significant at higher speeds. In the case of omni-directional underwater vehicles, the number of thrusters plays major role in optimal motion planning. For monostable underwater vehicles, the approximate analytical solution can be used as a good starting point for numerical solution. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.