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NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: ROBOTICS: India’s 01st Edition of ROSCon 2023 energises Robotics Community in country

The event featured seven innovative robotic startup showcases, 14 talks on ROS, and four-panel discussions.

India’s first edition of ROSCon 2023 — a platform that brought together industry experts, researchers and enthusiasts from the Robotics and ROS (Robot Operating System) community — was held in Bengaluru last week. The event witnessed a turnout of 700 participants from within and outside the country.

ARTPARK-IISc, in collaboration with Acceleration Robotics and Rigbetel Labs hosted the first edition of ROSCon India at the JN Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The two-day event held on December 14 and 15 offered a historic platform for ROS developers, encompassing enthusiasts at every level, from beginners to seasoned experts.

The event featured seven innovative robotic startup showcases, 14 talks on ROS, and four-panel discussions. The sessions delved into the evolving landscape of robotics in India, exploring challenges faced by startups in robotics, the significance of edge computing, and the intricacies of securing venture capital funding.

“It was a real eye-opener for us to see the tremendous interest in robotics in general and ROS in particular. This event is part of ARTPARK’s larger goal of catalyzing the innovation ecosystem around robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications to solve problems at scale via creating and supporting startups. The event played a pivotal role in uniting and strengthening the robotics community across the country,” said Prof Bharadwaj Amrutur, Executive Director and Chief Technologist, ARTPARK-IISc.

He added that ROSCon not only marked a momentous occasion in India’s robotics journey but also set the stage for continued collaboration, innovation and advancements in the field. The event received significant support from industry leaders, with Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Analogue Devices India joining as platinum sponsors.

ARTPARK is an AI and Robotics Technology Park promoted by the IISc to foster innovations in AI and robotics by bringing together the best of the startup, industry, research and government ecosystem. It is seed-funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) and the Government of Karnataka. 

Acceleration Robotics is focused on designing customized hardware, or “brains”, that speed up a robot’s operation. The company creates custom compute architectures for high-performance robots through hardware acceleration solutions. RigBetel Labs aims to bring the nitty-gritty of cutting-edge technologies like robotics, automation, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud tech and mobile application to every viable sector.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

NATIONAL: ENGINEERING & SCIENCE: DRONES: India closer to New Drone Power as NRT’s Indigenous Solar-Powered Pseudo-Satellite Flies for over 21 hrs

Start-up announced that its prototype had completed flight during Winter Solstice trial. Big fillip to India’s plan of having long-endurance drone capable of flying in stratosphere.

Bengaluru-based NewSpace Research and Technologies Pvt Ltd (NRT) announced Saturday that its long-endurance drone, the solar-powered High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS), had carried out its first flight lasting over 21 hours. The development comes as a big fillip to India’s plan to have its own long-endurance drones capable of flying in the stratosphere.

The project is being spearheaded under the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) initiative of the defence ministry. Under this, NRT has signed a contract for an initial proof-of-concept demonstrator, which targets a solar-powered flight lasting longer than 48 hours. 

Sameer Joshi, CEO of the start-up and a former Air Force pilot, announced on X, formerly Twitter, that the company’s prototype completed its flight during a Winter Solstice trial on 22 December.

The Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, tests the solar-powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAV) endurance at its worst. The next flight will take place on 21 June or the Summer Solstice, when the Sun will be at its brightest.

The IAF has included HAPS under a Rs 1,000 crore ‘Make I project’ of the Government of India. This means that 70 percent of the funding will come from the government.

Upbeat about the NRT feat, defence sources told ThePrint that this was the next big thing in air warfare and that the flight included both day and night flying, with the UAV using solar energy for travel during the day and using its solar-charged battery for flying at night. The sources refused to get into details of what altitude the UAV flew at, but said the plan is to have it fly in the stratosphere at about 65,000 feet, above air traffic.

For context, commercial aircraft typically fly between 31,000 and 38,000 feet, or at about 5.9 to 7.2 miles.

Since the HAPS operates on solar power, it can continue to fly for months.

India’s first stratospheric vehicle?

The HAPS UAV is part of a new genre of solar-powered platforms being designed across the world for persistent surveillance, communications, and specialist science missions.

Both the IAF and the Navy are on board with the project and are looking at acquiring this capability in the short term as well as in the long term. 

In India, the National Aerospace Laboratories under the government’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is also working on a similar project, but details of its progress are yet unknown. 

Defence sources told ThePrint that India does not have a stratospheric vehicle. 

Running exclusively on solar power and flying above the weather at 16-20 km autonomously for months at a stretch, a HAPS platform will fill a capability gap between satellites and HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) UAVs, sources said. 

The sources explained that HAPS is ultra-lightweight but has a strong body with the ability to take onboard batteries and other systems. They said that as the battery technology improves, the endurance would also grow.

The intended surveillance payloads for HAPS include electro-optical/ infra-red (EO/IR) solutions, synthetic aperture radars (SAR) besides communication payloads — including range extenders, electronic intelligence (ELINT) and electronic warfare (EW).  

The existing technology limits of the ISR payloads for HAPS allow observations of up to 80-100 km from stratospheric altitudes, which is 2-3 times more as offered by MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) UAVs. ISR, or Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), is vital for military operations.

Sources said the HAPS technology will offset the lack of critical ISR gap felt during the Doklam crisis, the Balakot incident, and the ongoing crisis in Ladakh. 

The Navy will be an immediate beneficiary since this allows continuous low-cost manning of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), sources said.

They also explained that the civilian use of HAPS is equally important since it can provide telecommunication connectivity all over India — especially in regions with patchy terrestrial network issues because of the challenges of terrain and costs.  

source/content: theprint.in (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: ARTIC RESEARCH: Raman Research Institute Scientists head to Arctic to study ‘Cosmic Dawn’

The 4-member team will be working in the vicinity of the Himadri research station in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

A team of scientists from Bengaluru’s Raman Research Institute has been sent to the Arctic Circle for a research expedition. The four-member team, which is led by Girish B S of RRI’S Electronics Engineering Group, will be working in the vicinity of the Himadri research station, located in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

The mission, which was flagged off from Delhi on Monday, is set to last until January 15, under the aegis of the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The mission will seek to deploy instruments near Himadri to study radio signals in the 5 to 500 megahertz range. It will assess whether Svalbard is “radio-quiet” enough to deploy Shaped Antenna measurement of the background Radio Spectrum (SARAS) radio telescopes.

The radio telescopes are used in the study of the ‘cosmic dawn’, an era in the development of the universe which saw the formation of the first stars and galaxies.

According to a statement from the RRI, these ancient signals are easily drowned out by modern cell phone towers and other interference.

Girish B S stated that due to rampant urbanisation in recent years, the space for the deployment of scientific experiments for cosmological studies is fast shrinking. “Several places, where low frequency astronomical observations were conducted in the past, are no longer suitable for carrying out precision measurements. And the biggest limitation in achieving the required sensitivity is RFI (radio frequency interference),” he said.

SARAS has previously been deployed in remote parts of Karnataka and Ladakh.

source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: BUSINESS & ECONOMY / TRANSPORT: KSRTC Launches Goods Cargo Services, 500 Trucks to be added by 2024-end 

Reddy said the Basaveshwara bus station at Peenya will be utilised as a depot for operation and maintenance for cargo trucks.

Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has become the first public bus transportation entity in the country to launch a goods parcel service, using trucks. It has entered into a memorandum of understanding with KMS Coach Builders for lending cargo truck services on rent for two months. It has signed a similar agreement with SM Kannappa Automobiles for one month.

Ramalinga Reddy, who flagged off the services, said, “Namma (Our) Cargo truck services with the tagline, ‘Your Confidence, Our Concern’, will start operations with 20 trucks and then scale up to 100 in the upcoming days. The aim is to have 500 trucks by the end of next year. The project is an ambitious initiative that intends to augment KSRTC’s non-ticket revenues.

Reddy said the Basaveshwara bus station at Peenya will be utilised as a depot for operation and maintenance for cargo trucks. He added that the remaining vacant space in the non-functional bus station will be handed over to government companies to generate revenue.

“KSRTC had earlier ventured into the logistics business under the brand name ‘Namma Cargo’ to carry parcels on KSRTC route buses. Taking this forward, we introduced ‘Namma Cargo truck service’ fitted with GPS for goods transportation,” said KSRTC MD Anbu Kumar.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL / NATIONAL/ KARNATAKA: GREEN-ENVIRONMENT / SPORTS : Bengaluru’s Ultra-Marathoner Aakash Nambiar runs 104Km barefoot in Dubai to raise ‘Awareness for Climate Change’

Aakash Nambiar’s initiative was inspired by the momentum generated by COP28, the climate change conference held earlier in December.

Aakash Nambiar, a 34-year-old ultra-marathoner from Bengaluru, took to the streets of Dubai barefoot, covering a staggering 104Km in just over 17 hours and 20 minutes. Known as ‘Barefoot Mallu’ on Instagram, Nambiar’s feat was not just a test of physical stamina but also a call to action against climate change.

Starting his journey at the break of dawn from Love Lake in Al Qudra, Nambiar traversed some of Dubai’s most iconic landmarks, including the Palm Jumeirah, Burj Al Arab, Kite Beach, Jumeirah Beach, La Mer Beach, Etihad Museum, and the Museum of the Future. His final destination was the towering Burj Khalifa, which he reached by midnight. Throughout this extraordinary marathon, Nambiar ran without shoes, braving the hot Middle Eastern terrain, save for the last few stretches at night.

Nambiar’s initiative was inspired by the momentum generated by COP28, the climate change conference held earlier in December. Through his run, he aimed to engage with community members, discussing the collective effort needed to combat climate change. His message was clear: “WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME” to act on this global issue.

“A 100KM inside Dubai, the city of skyscrapers!! The run started after the sun rise from Love, Lake to finish at the tallest building in the world Burj Khalifa covering Palm Jumeirah, Burj Al Arab, Kite Beach, Jumeirah Beach, La Mer beach, Etihad museum and Museum of future with a total of ~ 104KMs,” Nambiar wrote.

As reported by Khaleej Times, Nambiar expressed that running through the streets and meeting people made him feel alive and provided a powerful platform to spread his message on environmental conservation.

source/content: indiatoday.in (headline edited)