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#IP 845, 24- 30 Nov 2008

SERC School on Micro Machining and Micro Fabrication

The second SERC School on Micro Machining and Micro Fabrication was jointly organized by Central Manufacturing Technology Institute and National Aerospace laboratories between 24 and 28 Nov 2009 as part of NAL’s ongoing golden jubilee celebrations. The current theme of manufacturing, aims at higher performance coupled with miniaturization. Micro machining and Micro fabrication are the emerging technologies for realization of components and devices of extremely small sizes comprising tiny but highly sophisticated functional elements. Micro machining of components is carried out using advanced technological processes which include micro drilling, micro milling, micro wire EDM, micro ECM, laser micro machining, bulk micro machining, surface micro machining, lithographic techniques, etc.

The inaugural function held on 23 Nov 2009 was presided by Dr V Radhakrishnan, Prof Emeritus, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IISST), Thiruvananthapuram. Dr P Radhakrishnan, Director, PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, Coimbatore was the chief guest. Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL in his welcome address stressed the importance of micro machining, micro fabrication keeping in view of the advancement in miniaturization of product for various application like MEMS, MAV etc.  Mr M A Ravindra, Joint Director, CMTI gave a broad overview of SERC School. He said the need for a purposeful and focused interaction between Academia, Industry and R & D Institutions has been recognized for undertaking meaningful Research and Development activities leading to practical and commercially deployable outcomes. To facilitate such interactions and to provide an overview of the latest trends in emerging technologies, SERC has embarked on an initiative to organise Schools on specific topics through renowned organizations active in the field.

The function ended with vote of thanks proposed by Mr P V Shashi Kumar, Joint Director, CMTI.

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Dr S K Bhaumik

Dr S K Bhaumik, Scientist, Material Science Division has been selected for  the MRSI Medal for 2009. This will be presented to him at the AGM of MRSI to be held at Kolkata during Feb 10-12 2009. He has also been invited to deliver the MRSI Medal Lecture.

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Congratulations Mr  Amit Kumar

Mr Amit Kumar Onkar, Scientist, Structures Division, NAL has been awarded Ph.D degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur for the thesis titled “Stochastic Finite Element Buckling Analysis of Undamaged and damaged Laminated Composite Plates”.

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ReQUEST 2008

NAL participated in the Exhibition of the 3rd National Conference on Quality and Reliability in Aerospace Technologies held at NIMHANS Convention Center, Bangalore, 24th and 25th November 2008 jointly organized by Society for Aerospace Quality and Reliability and Defence Research and Development Organisation.  Air Marshal K M Rama Sundara, AVSM, VSM, Air Officer Maintenance, Air HQ, New Delhi, Chief Guest, inaugurated the Exhibition. The NAL stall was visited by distinguished guests and eminent scientists.

Sasikala G R Murthy

 

 

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In a communication from Prof Samir K Brahmachari, DG , CSIR  has mentioned that Air Marshal K M Rama Sundara AVSM, VSM, Air Officer-in-Charge Maintenance, has appreciated the work done by Scientists of NAL in the successful and timely completion of the project “In-flight Vibration and Temperature Measurement on Mig-29 Aircraft”.

Prof Samir K Brahmachari, DG , CSIR  congratulatory message for the scientists reads- Needless to say that such letters fill me with pride and optimisim for NAL in particular, and also for CSIR, in general…

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#IP 844, 17 - 23 Nov 2008

Mr Arun V Ainayar

“What is your take home message to the young fraternity at NAL?”” There should be no haste; safety first “ was the instantaneous reply by Mr. Arun, Gr.II (2), SED who took voluntary retirement on 31st Oct 2008 after serving NAL for almost three and a half decades. According to him over enthusiasm and overconfidence could be fatal. He substantiated this with his experience when a graduate trainee just escaped death when he received a 440V shock, as he did not switch on a machine in the right way. He reminiscence as how he and his colleagues initiated the electronics lab at NAL.

He urged the youth to be scientists and not scientific labourers. “Define them?” A scientist is one who forgets time and his coffee gets cold on the table.” “Are you sad to leave NAL?” “Work is worship. I am happy as I’ll be working on an assignment at Singapore in my favorite domain – electronics and will restart my home laboratory”.

Mr. Arun plans to bring light into every household. His home project is to manufacture and export solar generators. There is absolutely no doubt that he will be successful in this venture, for the enlightened human being that he is, more so spiritually too. We are going to miss our short discussions we would have with him (in between our experiments) on meditation, god and philosophy in general. Bon voyage and Happy meditation.

Amitha

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NAL participated in the exhibition to show case its achievements in the area of Aerospace Science.  The student community showed interest in HANSA and SARAS and  of SMA(Shape Memory Alloy) in Aerospace Science. 

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 #IP 843, 10-16 Nov 2008

Seminar in Kannada on Aerospace Science and Related Technologies (SKART) -
Kannada Vijnana Goshti

As a part of NAL’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, a Kannada Vignana Goshti  on  Aerospace Science and Related Technologies, was jointly organized with the Kannada Samskruthika Sangha NAL on 11 November 2008, at Dr Valluri auditorium. The inauguration of the function, opened with invocation. Dr C Divakar, Co-ordinator of the Seminar welcomed the gathering and introduced the chief guest, Dr M K Surappa, Professor at Indian Institute of Science and Secretary, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology. The Seminar was inaugurated by lighting the traditional Lamp.  Prof. Surappa released a Souvenir containing the abstracts of the presentations (both in Kannada and English), to be made in the two technical sessions, articles of the Key note address, invited talks and advertisements of sponsors.

In his inaugural speech, Dr Surappa mentioned that it is high time that the seminar is being conducted as Kannada has recently received the classical language status. He commended the work done by NAL in organizing this seminar in Kannada. He observed that there is a decline in students taking up science even in rural areas and there is a need for changes in the teaching methods. He felt that the subjects discussed in the seminar may become the part of the text for High School and College syllabus. Such subjects on advanced science and technology through such seminars will immensely contribute to students taking up science. Dr. Surappa expressed that in Germany, Japan, France etc. the learning and teaching science in their national language helped in faster development of technologies in those countries. Appreciating the efforts of NAL in propagating science in regional language, felt that such activities also should take place in Universities.

On this occasion the third volume of the book consisting of scientific articles written by our Kannada loving scientist late Dr K S Raman was also released by Prof. Surappa.

In the Keynote address, “From Wind Tunnels to Fine Tuned Wings” Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL, gave an overview of both infrastructural and intellectual developments of NAL and took the audience through five decades of the activities of NAL from wind tunnels to fine tuned wings. He highlighted the milestones of each decade, enlightened the present success stories of HANSA and SARAS as well as the ambitious future plans of regional transport aircraft (RTA). Dr R Ramachndra Rao, the convener proposed the vote of thanks.

In the first technical session, chaired by Dr H N Sudhindra, DGM (design) & Head, Power Plant & Fuel System, HAL, the invited talk was on India’s  current space program Chandrayana – I, presented by Dr Ranganath Ekkundi, Programme director, Power, ISRO. He presented the interesting details of the mission, objectives, equipments on board etc. This was followed by presentations on CFD techniques for engines, GPS systems for space applications, various launch vehicles, unmanned air vehicles and the importance of titanium alloys.

In the  second session, chaired by Dr A C Raghuram, former Deputy Head, Materials Science Division, the invited presentation was on civil aircraft development program by Dr C Divakar, NAL. Dr Divakar presented the importance of air connectivity, the requirement of regional transport aircraft and the necessary technologies to be developed to make it viable to be used in the 400 odd airports in India and contribute towards the progress of the country in becoming a developed nation by 2020. This was followed by presentations on CFD techniques developed at NAL, super hydrophobic coatings for aerospace, composite materials, wind energy program and multi sensor data fusion.

The presentations were rich in content and were refreshing and it was amply clear that scientific and technological concepts could be effectively communicated in Kannada. The number of registered participants were more than 100 and the sessions were well attended.

Dr. C  Divakar, Coordinator and Dr R  Ramachandra Rao

Convenor of the Seminar SKART

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#IP 842, 3 - 9 Nov 2008

National Workshop on Adaptive Signal Processing

The Aerospace Electronics and Systems Division due to the importance of Adaptive Signal Processing in many engineering and scientific fields, conducted a National Workshop on this topic during 3 -7 November 2008 as a part of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of NAL.

In practice, any real time signal processing will be adaptive and this also enables to capture their invariably true nature of nonstationarity.. The workshop covered: Spectral Estimation, Parametric Spectral Modeling, Method of Steepest Descent Algorithm, Least Mean Square Algorithm and its variants, Lattice and Transform domain adaptive filters, Frequency domain/ block LMS algorithm, Subband adaptive algorithm, IIR adaptive filters, Recursive least square (RLS) algorithm, applications like active noise control, Echo cancellation, Channel equalization, ADPCM, Biomedical Applications etc.. DSP processors and their role in implementation of the algorithms. There were many demonstrations on the implementation of algorithms on MATLAB, sigNAL, and DSP processors.

There were three guest lectures on Kalman filtering and its applications by Dr. Girija Goplaratnam (FMCD,NAL, Banagalore),  New structures for adaptive filtering by Dr.M.K. Sridharan (Philips India Ltd.Bangalore) and Antennna arrays, concepts and applications by Prof. T. Sreenivas (ECE, IISc, Bangalore).

Thirty five delegates from LRDE(6), CRL-BEL(4), ADE(2), NAL(8), ADA (1), ISAC(1) (all from Banagalore), NARL, Tirupati(1) Genisis Microchip India Pvt Ltd.,Banagalore (3), Motorola, Banagalore(2), NPOL, Cochin (2), NSTL, Vishakapatnam (1), SDM College of Engineering, Dharwad (2), PESSE, Banagalore(1), NITT, Trichi (1); attended this workshop

The delegates expressed their high appreciation on : the topics chosen and the manner in which they were covered by the NAL and guest faculty and also on the organization of the workshop in totality.

Dr S V Narasimhan