News and Events, NAL, Bangalore

NAL celebrated National Science Day on 28 February 2008. Prof Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath, Director of National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), Gurgaon, Haryana delivered the Science Day Lecture, on The Working of the Human Brain - Molecules and Networks to Behaviour. Dr M R Nayak welcomed the gathering and highlighted the significance of National Science Day and said NSD was a great day for the Indian Scientific Community. He introduced the speaker by summarizing her exceptional educational and professional accomplishments.

Prof Vijayalakshmi said she was delighted to be at NAL as she was a CSIR alumni (she worked in CFTRI as research scholar in early 80’s). She shared her experience and excitement of being a neuro scientist giving a glimpse of what neuro science is all about. She explained about the human brain, what neuroscience is, enlightening the audience about how the scientific study as an independent branch was taken over 30 years ago, principally due to revolutions in molecular biology, neural networks and computational neuroscience. It has become possible to understand, in detail, the complex processes occurring inside a single neuron and in a network that eventually produces the intellectual behavior, cognition, emotion and physiological responses. She explained about neurons, network, and the human brain structure, plasticity of the brain etc. She spoke about the studies that have been taken up at NBRC in the area of learning and memory, role of genes, brain structure and experience. The brain is an active, dynamic supremely plastic structure, which starts working from the third week of conception. The network and wiring makes the human brain function efficiently. Biologists and engineers need to team up for future advancements. She concluded her lecture with the adage ‘Brain - Use it or Lose it’. Exercise your brain, nourish it well and the earlier you start the better.

Dr A R Upadhya in his presidential remarks complimented the speaker for a very interesting and thought provoking speech.

The function ended with a vote of thanks by Dr M N Sathyanaraya, Jt. Head KTMD.

The CSIR COFAs/FAOs Meet co-ordinated by NAL was held on 22 February 2008 at Director’s Conference Hall. Prof S K Brahmachari, Director General of CSIR, Ms Sheila Sangwan, FA, CSIR HQ, New Delhi and DrJ J Isaac, Acting Director, NAL attended the meet and addressed the COFAs/FAOs of all the CSIR labs.

A high level DLR Delegation, Germany visited NAL on 7 February 2008. Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL welcomed the delegates and made a presentation about ‘NAL activities’. Prof Szodruch, Member of the Executive Board, DLR, Germany made a presentation on ‘DLR activities’.

A top level executive team from BELL, Helicopter, Canada visited NAL on 7 February 2008.

A three member delegation from US Director of Defense Research Engineering (DDR&E) visited NAL on 18 February 2008.

Historic Conference on Micro Aerial Vehicle and Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technologies

The National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore and the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment, Agra, have partnered with the U. S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM)’s International Technology Center – Pacific to host the first U.S. - Asian Demonstration and Assessment of Micro Aerial and Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technologies March 10 – 15, 2008, at the Jaypee Palace Hotel, Agra, India.

The event is sponsored by the US Department of Defense, in particular the international R&D offices of US Army RDECOM, US Navy Office of Naval Research – Global (ONR-G), US Air Force Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA).

The event has been extended full support by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF).

The purpose of the Conference is (i) to showcase next-generation , COTS enabled prototype systems of Micro Air Vehicles(MAV) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles(UGV) that are almost ready for end-use , thus hasten their induction into the Forces (ii) identify areas for further development of critical technologies. It is expected to give a major fillip to the current developmental efforts in India in the area of MAVs and UGVs by presenting the state-of-the- art in technologies and indicating the future trends in research and development in the area. The event also sets favorable conditions for future collaborative research between India and the international MAV community.

The subject is highly relevant as the Defense Services need systems appropriate to Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT), Light-Combat Survivability and Force Protection (FP). Presently such support is being given by a larger class of UAVs, but MAVs definitely enjoy greater advantage. The systems are also important for civilian applications such as disaster management, urban traffic monitoring, search and rescue operations etc.

It may be noted here that two previous editions of the event were held in Germany in the years 2003 and 2005. These events mainly concentrated on proving platform technology, but mission capability and adaptability is now the major goal.

Twelve international teams from academia, government and industry (two from the US, one from Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Japan, and Australia and four from India) will conduct briefings, display technology and demonstrate capability during the five day technology event. An International Judging Panel will evaluate the entries on their performance. A three day specialist’s conference will be held concurrently to address research and development critical to the next generation of micro air vehicle systems.

An International Organizing Committee (IOC) is planning and coordinating the overall organizational efforts in association with NAL, Bangalore, ADRDE, Agra and RDECOM’s International Technology Centre-Pacific. A National Advisory Committee consisting of eminent personalities from the R&D and user communities in India in the area is advising the Organizers. The local organizational effort at Agra is being led and coordinated by ADRDE, Agra with full assistance from and active participation of Air Force Station and Para Brigade at Agra.

It is expected that the event will benefit the MAV community in the country and spur speedy developments in this strategically important area.

Members of the Indian media desiring access to the various events are asked to contact either of the following press officers to coordinate coverage. Opportunities for coverage include the opening ceremony, static judging displays and one day at the flight demonstration site.

Issued By:
Director NAL, Bangalore, Director, ADRDE,Agra, Commander RDECOM ITC-Pacific

Dr T G Ramesh

I have known Dr T G Ramesh since 1971, right from his research student days in the Materials Division of NAL, when I spent a sabbatical year in the Division to set up facilities for High Pressure research. At that time Dr Ramaseshan brought him to me and introduced him as one of his best students. We ended up discussing about the anomalous high-pressure behaviour of cesium. A few years later Dr Ramesh wrote a beautiful paper with Dr Ramaseshan on this subject, with clear insight. To me this reflected his excellent grasp of condensed matter physics and electronic behavior of solids under high pressure. I believe this constituted a part of his PhD thesis. His subsequent entry into the world of high-pressure research, this time as an experimentalist led to many outstanding contributions in the field of mixed-valent materials and 4-f electron systems. Dr Ramesh and Dr Shubha pioneered thermo electric effect as a probe to investigate high-pressure phenomena of many metallic systems, including the spin density wave ordering in Cr based alloys.

I have watched with interest his growth as a condensed matter physicist and his excellent contributions to high-pressure research. His humility combined with a wide knowledge, and ability to inspire younger scientists impressed me very much.

During my recent visit to NAL after a long gap, I was extremely happy to see him as the Head of the Materials Division and to hear about some of the projects he has initiated in the field of applications and technology.

Dr Ramesh has immensely contributed to the intellectual atmosphere in the Division and will be missed by his colleagues and friends. I admire his work, his scholarship, his ability and his dedication to science and technology at NAL.

I wish him a long life, continuing interest in Science and happy years of retirement.

Dr A Jayaraman
AT & T Bell Telephone
Laboratories, USA

NALTECH Pvt. Ltd has donated a sum of Rs 15,000/ to the Lawrence School, Lovedale, as per the decision taken at the Board of Directors meeting of NALTECH held on 5 January 2008. It was also decided to present a silver medal every year to the ‘Best Outstanding Science Student’ in the name of National Aerospace Laboratories out of the interest generated from the amount.

Kofi Annan (1998), the 7th Secretary General of the United Nations remarked in one of his speeches, “History is our Guide to the Future, for there can be no vision without a sense of History”.

I felt this statement was true, when I participated as a delegate sponsored by NAL in the ‘National Workshop on Preservation of Scientific Heritage’, organized jointly by the Indian Institute of Astro-physics (IIA), Bangalore, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, during 21-22 January 2008.

The workshop had 103 participants, representing the various prestigious scientific institutions spread across the country. About 26 key speakers spoke on diverse topics ranging from-collection of heritage material, conservation procedures, factors causing deterioration, preventive and curative conservation, acidity management, storage specifica-tions, environmental factors, disaster management, preservation of hand-written manuscripts, copyright issues etc.

Today, scientific institutions are faced with the challenges of preserving records that are often in a fragile and deteriorated condition. Hence, the focus of this workshop was to enable institutions to think of methods of collecting, preserving, cataloguing archival material and making them available for research.

Session-IV on 22 January 2008 was the panel discussion session, chaired by Prof. R Narasimha, former, Director, NAL and Chairman, Engineering Mechanics Unit, JNCASR, Bangalore. In the panel discussion, it was pointed out by me that; ‘obsoleteness of technology was one of the biggest enemies in terms of electronic information access’. From time immemorial, the world has witnessed enormous loss of digital information, which could never be recreated due to inadequate archival methods. Quoting Prof. Don Walters, Yale University, “it’s clear that the major concern in the management of electronic resources is as follows: if bits survive, will they still be accessible when hardware and software change?”

Looking at some of the well-established practices of Institutional Repositories across the world, I strongly feel that any enterprise’s digital content management strategy should be inter-woven by a ‘four-pronged’ approach, namely: Refreshing, Migration, Emulation and Metadata.

With the rich experience gained in archiving ‘SARAS Videos’ at NAL, we are much more confident in handling ‘digital videos’, and thereby their archival and retrieval intricacies.

During the panel discussion, I put forth the view that the ‘digital video master rushes’ should be retained on magnetic tapes as the ‘primary (master) archive’. If there are terabyte storage devices as part of the institutional repository, the secondary should be kept (‘digitized video files’) on the storage hard disks. And, finally, record the digital video from the magnetic tapes onto a ‘real-time’ DVD recorder as the third archived source. Regarding microfilms, which came up for discussion as the best archival medium today, it was agreed that it is the best storage medium for ‘static data’ and not ‘dynamic data’. We need to be content in storing videos on tapes, powerful hard disks and real-time DVD writers.

I would like to conclude by saying that ‘Information preservation is one of the most important issues in human history, culture, economics as well as for the development of our civilization’. More so, ensuring long-term access to digitally stored information poses a significant technological challenge. This is mainly because of the dependency of the digital information on its technical environment.

As we are approaching close to celebrating NAL’s golden jubilee, a collaborative lab effort must begin now to archive and preserve the ‘rich scientific heritage of NAL’. The longer we take to do this, the harder it will get. But, before we embark on digital preservation, it is obviously necessary to physically preserve our heritage, otherwise our ‘history would be lost forever..’.

Another achievement for HANSA-3 aircraft
Handing over of two HANSA-3 aircraft to Madras flying club, Chennai

Two HANSA-3 aircrafts, (Regn. Nos. VT-HOC & VT-HNZ) were handed over to DGCA by Dr. A R Upadhya, Director NAL, for allotment to the Madras Flying Club, on 6th February 2008.

Capt. Sebastian T. Joseph, Honorary Secretary of Madras Flying Club received the aircrafts on behalf of Madras Flying Club, Chennai from Sri. D.N. Lahon, Director, AED, DGCA at a function held at C-CADD.

The event began with a welcome by Head, C-CADD followed by Director’s remarks and subsequently the aircraft documents and keys were handed over to DGCA. Following this, the Director (AED), DGCA, Bangalore, formally handed over the aircrafts to Madras Flying Club.

Capt. Sebastian T. Joseph expressed his happiness to receive these airplanes and mentioned that around 200 students are eagerly waiting in the flying school to fly this machine.

Dr.H.N.V.Dutt, Jt. Head, C-CADD, AVM (Retd.) A.S. Lamba, Test Pilot HANSA, Capt. Santhosh Babu, Jet Airways, Sri. Rajashekar, Dy. Director, DGCA (AED), Dr. Ranjan Moodhithaya, Head, KTMD, Sri. E. Nagarajan, C O F A, Dr. K. Yegna Narayan, Scientists and Engineers from NAL and ADES were also present on the occasion.

Recent issues of NAL Information Pasteboard Prev Next

To access previous issues of the Information Pasteboard please choose
the month and year (starting Sep 2006) and click on the "goto" button