Objective

The objective of the VLSI Design & Embedded Systems Group is to address the research, development and design problems and advance their solutions in VLSI circuits for embedded system and ubiquitous computing applications. The areas are Embedded System design, Power Electronics, Wireless networks, Signal processing, Biomedical Electronics, Electronic Instrumentation, and Audio and Speech Processing.

The research topics covered by the group are:

  • System-on-a-chip design – FPGAs & ASICs
  • Reconfigurable computing
  • Algorithms and structures for efficient data and image processing on-board
  • Intelligent systems for on-board data processing and control
  • Connectivity, networking and distributed computing
  • Automotive applications

R & D Areas

Hardware In-the-Loop for Power electronics circuits
Real-time simulation is proving very useful in simulating complex and expensive systems using the high performance multi-processors. It has many applications in the area of testing of controllers and protection systems under real-field like situations. The commercial versions of real-time digital simulator are available with focus on power electronic systems and are quite costly at present. In this project, an effort will be made to prepare a low-cost system to carry out real-time simulation in a laboratory. This system is useful in demonstration of the dynamics and control of complex real-life systems that cannot be set up in a practical way. Examples of such systems include complex electric power systems, wind mills, automobiles and locomotives. Also real-time simulation is useful for hardware in-the-loop simulation (HILS). In this, the hardware, performing real-time simulation is connected to other real subsystem to test the performance.
The entire simulation system will be built up using open source or free software, and low cost hardware components. The simulation system implements the system model, and its control system in real-time.

Load Emulation using Power electronic Converters
Load emulation is the concept of controlling a power electronic converter such as a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) in such a manner that its behavior resembles that of an electrical load such as an induction machine. The load emulator can provide different load characteristics with which the control algorithms and inverter design can be tested. Therefore, load emulation allows the user to test both the hardware and the software of the inverter, thus offering a more flexible platform for testing inverters in a laboratory environment. The load emulator is effectively a dynamically controllable source or sinks which is capable of bidirectional power exchange with either a grid or another power electronic converter system. Using load emulation, the feasibility of connecting a particular load to a grid or VSI under various conditions can be studied in the absence of any electromechanical machinery.

The research mainly focuses on :

  • Simulation of power electronics circuits, non-linear electrical load models.
  • High power and high frequency switching converters.
  • Modeling and simulation of control systems.
  • Development of a combined off-line and real-time simulator for power electronics simulation.
  • Development of a flexible low cost DSP/FPGA platform for power electronics control implementation.
  • Integration of power electronics with digital control systems, and system prototyping.
  • Designing and prototyping a platform for sampling and transmitting sensor data to a central net server using ad hoc rf networks.

Additional Objectives

  • Creating a suite of courses, for graduate and masters students to this program – that would have a strong experimental research component.
  • Setting up an inter-university cooperative program in which graduate students from other universities can come and take courses & do their research projects in the facility created.
  • Running summer courses in Embedded Systems for university teachers and industry professionals.

Training activities

The activities of the VLSI Systems Research Group are related to efficient system design and advanced software development, also train manpower in this emerging area and interact with the industry.

Research Facilities

The VLSI Design Lab was established almost eight years ago and has 25 Lenovo Core2Duo systems along with EDA tools from Mentor Graphics. It is located at 310, 3rd floor, Sardar Patel Institute of Technology.

  • FPGA software for VLSI DSP prototype designs.
  • VLSI circuit design using Cadence tools.
  • DSP development boards based on floating point TMS320C6713 chip, TMS320VC33.
  • ARM7, ARM10, ARM11 Evaluation Boards, Trident SOC EVM.
  • Tools: MATLAB, LabView 8.0, Silvaco, Tanner, Synplicity 8.6.2, Active HDL 7.2, multiSIM, ultiBOARD

Team

Y. S. Rao

B.E. (Electronics), M.E. (Computers), PhD (IIT-B)
18+ Years of Experience

Publications

  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and Mukul Chandorkar, ‘Rapid Prototyping Tool for Electrical Load Emulation using Power Electronic Converters’,  Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4-6 October 2009.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and Mukul Chandorkar, ‘Electrical Load Emulation using Power Electronic Converters‘, Proceedings of the IEEE Region 10 Conference, Hyderabad, India, 19-21 November 2008, ISBN:978-1-4244-2408-5.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and Mukul Chandorkar, ‘Electrical Load Emulation using Optimal Feedback Control Technique‘, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, Gippsland, Australia, 9-13 February 2009, pp. 748-753, ISBN:978-1-4244-3507-4.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and Mukul Chandorkar, ‘Real-Time Electrical Load Emulator using Optimal Feedback Control Technique‘, under review for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and Mukul Chandorkar, ‘Electrical Load Emulator for Unbalanced Loads and with Power Regeneration‘, under review for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and M. C. Chandorkar, ‘Load Emulation with Power Electronic Converters‘, Proceedings of the National Power Electronic Conference, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 17-19 December 2007.
  • Y. Srinivasa Rao and M. C. Chandorkar, ‘Numerical Integration Methods for Digital Power Electronics and Electrical Drives‘ CIEE-05 National Conference on Computational Intelligence for Electrical Engineering, pp. 20-24, 18-19, November 2005.
  • Y. S. Rao, Navan Savla, Nirav Shah, Amit Jardosh, and Kaushik Barat, “Swift Doc” ‘Remote Monitoring of Heart abnormalities‘, IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition, CSIDC-2002, Washington D.C.
  • Ronak Gandhi, Y. S. Rao,  Anish Raut and Ninad Sawe, ‘Green House Control Using Embedded Web-Server‘, SPIT-IEEE Colloquium 2008 and International Conference, 4-5  February 2008.
  • Y. S. Rao,  Anish Raut and Ninad Sawe, ‘Real Time Vibration Analyzer Using Bluetooth Technology‘, SPIT-IEEE Colloquium 2008 and International Conference, 4-5  February 2008.
  • Sumeet Shetty, Meghana Korde and Y. S. Rao,  ‘Wireless Sensored Networks‘,  SPIT-IEEE Colloquium 2008 and International Conference, 4-5  February, 2008.
  • Nileshwar, K. Mhatre, N. Kuchroo, O. Mansata and Y. S. Rao,  ‘Comparison of Fuzzy Control and PID Control in Embedded Systems‘ SPIT-IEEE Colloquium 2008 and International Conference, 4-5  February 2008.
  • D. N. Kyatanavar, Y. S. Rao, and A N Tiwari ‘Low Cost Video Digitizer‘, IE(I) Journal – ET, Vol 77, 99-87, March 1997.
  • ‘DSP Add-On Card’ ,IETE Technical Review, D. N. Kyatanavar, Y. S. Rao, and A N Tiwari , pp 375-380, vol 16, No 3 & 4, May-August 1999.
  • ‘PC Based ECG Analyzer‘, D. N. Kyatanavar, R P Sood and Y. S. Rao,  IETE Technical Review ,  pp 33-40, vol 13, No-1, January-February 1996.
  • ‘Microprocessor controlled copying attachment on shaper machine’ Proceedings of the 18th All India Manufacturing Technology Design and Research Conference,  9 – 13, December 21-23, 1998,  IIT-Kharagpur .
  • ‘PC Based ECG Analyzer and Transmitter‘, Y. S. Rao, R. P. Sood , Proceedings of the National Conference on Biomedical Engineering, pp 76-81, April 21-22, 2000 University of Roorkee.
  • ‘Handheld ECG Monitoring System‘, Y. S. Rao and R. P. Sood,   Proceedings of the National Conference on Biomedical Engineering, pp 82-84, April 21-22, 2000 University of Roorkee.

Projects Mentored

  • Real Time Data Acquisition System
  • Microcontroller Based Induction Heating Control System
  • Fuzzy Logic Based Smart Embedded System
  • FPGA  Based 3-Phase Uninterrupted Power Supply
  • Porting uCLinux to ARM processor
  • Environmental Sound Manipulator
  • Microcontroller based LED Matrix Display
  • Vector Voltmeter using 8952 Microcontroller
  • Design of Frequency Counter using VLSI technique

K. T. V. Talele

M. E. (Electronics)
18+ Years of Experience

Projects Mentored

  • Embedded Web Server Based Automation And Sensor System
  • Speech Controlled Cargo Lifter

P. V. Kasambe

M. E. (Electronics)
10+ Years of Experience

Publications

  • Genetic Algorithms for Wireless Communication‘, P.V. Kasambe ,at the NCETCI-2007 held at Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai.
  • Optimizing the Performance of Control System using Genetic Algorithms‘, P.V. Kasambe ,at the NCETCI-2007 held at Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai.
  • Validation of Multi-Manchester Receiver Using Co-Simulation Environment of Simulink in Matlab‘ and HDL’, P.V. Kasambe, at the International Conference, RSPS-2008, KLCE, Andhra Pradesh.
  • Validation of Multi-Manchester Receiver Using Co-Simulation Environment of Simulink in Matlab and HDL‘,  P.V. Kasambe,  published at the International Conference, ICVLSI-08, VEC, Tamil Nadu.
  • FPGA based implementation of color image processing techniques‘, P.V. Kasambe , published at the International Conference, SPIT-IEEE Colloquium, Mumbai, Feb-2008.
  • Modified Fractal Image Compression Technique Using Genetic Algorithms‘, P.V. Kasambe, published at the International Conference, SPIT-IEEE Colloquium, Mumbai, Feb-2008.
  • Real Time Heart Rate Variability Analysis Using Virtual Instrumentation‘, P.V. Kasambe, R.G. Sutar,  published at the International Conference, ICCCI-2008, VESIT, Mumbai.

Projects Mentored

  • Fabrication And Testing Of Optoelectronic Devices using Virtual Instrumentation
  • VHDL implementation of UART
  • i-button and Microcontroller based Attendance Record System
  • Modeling And Simulation Of VLSI Devices
  • Analysis Of Gate Stack In VLSI Device

R. G. Sutar
M. E. (Electronics)
11+ Years of Experience
Publication

Real Time Heart Rate Variability Analysis Using Virtual Instrumentation‘, P.V. Kasambe, R.G. Sutar,  published at the International Conference, ICCCI-2008, VESIT, Mumbai.

Project Mentor

Programmable  Voltage And Current Regulator