NCRA | National Centre of Robotics and Automation

Robot Maker Lab

NUST College of E&ME

Lab Aim and Scope

The Robot Maker Lab will be equipped with the state-of-the-art rapid prototyping, machining and fabrication facilities for robot parts. The Lab has two main streams dealing with mechanical and electrical part manufacturing of robots. It is a shared facility between all NCRA Labs and will act as a centralized robot manufacturing facility to support NCRA Labs, start-ups, academia and industry. Following manufacturing processes will be available:

Metal Working
Plastic Working
Wood Working
Carbon Fiber Processing
PCB circuit design and fabrication

Major Facilities

5-axis CNC machining center
State of art 3D printing center
Laser based precision machining facility
3D scanning facility for reverse engineering
Grinding, polishing and welding facilities
PCB rapid prototyping, manufacturing and testing facilities

Target Outcomes

The Robot Maker Lab will be a shared facility of NCRA and it aims at providing prototyping, manufacturing and training services to academia, start-ups, NCRA labs and industry partners, in the process, generating a revenue of PKR 9.5 Million in three year. The lab also intends to create jobs and convert research projects into products in collaboration with the NCRA labs. A number of workshops will be conducted to impart skills to more than 100 individuals in first three years. The lab will also provide consultancy services to local industry, academia and start-ups.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

All NCRA Labs, Local industry, Researchers in robotics, Start-ups.

Research Projects, International Collaboration

State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems, Harbin Institute of Technology, P R China
Aria Lab for Bioroboitcs and Biomedical Engineering, Nagoya University, Japan
XYZ Printing, Taiwan

People

Dr. Amir Hamza (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Danish Hussain(Co-PI)
Dr. Nauman Razzaq (Co-PI)
Engr. Hamza Ahmed(Team Lead)
Engr. Zahid Abbas (Team Lead)
Engr. Abdul Karim (Design Engineer)
Engr. Absar Ahmed (Design Engineer)

Robot Design and Development Lab

NUST College of E&ME

Lab Aim and Scope

The primary objective of the lab will be to provide a fusion center where real world (preferably local) problems are picked, given to a multidisciplinary team, and lead till commercialization. Secondary objectives will include, but not limited to, human resource development and providing a platform where industry, startups, and academia can collaborate.

Target Outcomes

The target outcome of the lab is to produce at least three products based on the local market needs and can be categorized in three domains, i.e. prosthesis, agriculture robotics, and unmanned ground vehicles. These product development will lead to three journal papers and 5 conference papers. These products will help to produce two startup companies. We will be able to produce 20 highly skilled and trained professionals in the domains mentioned above.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

Local agricultural industry, farmers. Patients with accidental and by birth imputation. Local security agencies, who will use UGVs.

Research Projects, International Collaboration

Taiwan Tech NTUST. One of our Co-PI is close working on two funded projects by a Professor from the Robotics lab at Taiwan Tech NTUST
Central Queensland University Australia. The researchers from agriculture lab is closely working with a plant science professor at CQU to develop mango maturity device. The project proposal has been submitted to PARC and is in the final stage of acceptance by the board of governors.
The department also have a working relationship with the researchers from Robotics lab at University of Prague Czech Republic.
Scientia Professor, Dr Nigel Lovell, UNSW, is already working in biomedical domain. Dept faculty already has several joint research publications.
The department faculty has also a working relationship with AIT Solution Thailand and Agha Khan foundation. Just recently a project on 3D mapping for Baltit fort was completed for AIT Solution Thailand

People

Dr Javaid Iqbal (Principal Investigator)
Dr Mohsin Islam Tiwana (Co-PI)
Dr Waqar Shahid Qureshi (Co-PI)
AP Nasir Rashid (Co-PI)

Human Centered Robotics Lab

UET Lahore & UCP Lahore

Lab Aim and Scope

Human-Centered Robotics Lab aims to indigenously design and develop integrated robotic systems, based on smart sensing and actuation, to seamlessly interact with humans, actively learn from them and eventually create an effective collaborative environment. The lab will focus on the development of following application domains: Collaborative Robots, Exoskeletons, Active Prostheses and Active Orthoses.

Target Outcomes

A fully functional collaborative robot for typical industrial applications
A fully functional prototype of upper-body exoskeleton for industrial activity/persons with reduced mobility
A fully functional active prostheses for lower limbs
A fully developed wearable assessment sensory systems
A working prototype of a low-cost lower limb exoskeleton device for polio patients
A universal research platform for medical exoskeleton research involving paraplegic (spinal cord injury) patients

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

Automobile Manufactures and Affiliated Vendor Industry, Assembly Plants, Manufacturing Industry
Patients with Mobility Impairments, Hospitals and Related Health Care Industry

Research Projects, International Collaboration

Cobots: Ashraf Group of Companies
Cobots and Exoskeletons: Millat Tractors
Active Prostheses: Shalimar Hospital, Lahore
Active Prostheses/Orthoses: The Pakistan Society for Rehabilitation of the Disabled (PSRD), Lahore, Pakistan, LUMS, CMH
Exoskeletons: MARS Labs, UT Arlington, TX, USA
Human-Centered Robotics Applications: Massey University, New Zealand
Active Prostheses: University of Leeds UK

People

Dr. Ali Raza (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Muhammad Ahsan (Co-PI)
Dr. Mohsin Rizwan (Co-PI)
Dr. Hafiz Farhan Maqbool (Co-PI)
Dr. Zohaib Aftab (Co-PI)

MEMs Sensor Design and Testing

Air University

Lab Aim and Scope

The lab will develop skilled manpower through scientific research to produce world class MEMS experts having expertise in design and testing to produce world class R&D in MEMS and initiate commercial activities in this area in Pakistan. Moreover, it will support the local needs of the academic institutions, strategic organizations especially the research groups working in the field of robotics and automation. Design, simulation and testing of MEMS based devices including MEMS physical sensors, micro-robotic actuators, RF-MEMS and energy harvesters at the microscale will be carried at the lab.

Target Outcomes

Indigenous development of MEMS sensors and actuators for the possible applications in the area of robotics and automation.
Establishment of state of the art design and test facility for the development of MEMS devices in Pakistan.
To provide MEMS prototype services including MEMS device design, fabless manufacturing and testing to the national institutes and organizations.
Development of an open source cell library with experimentally validated MEMS devices that will eventually lead to development of first MEMS design house in Pakistan.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

The lab will provide MEMS sensors design, characterization and commercial off the shelf MEMS selection services to the local industry including NESCOM, HIT, PAEC, PAC, CARE and local research groups working in the field of robotics and automation.

Research Projects, International Collaboration

Development of MEMS physical sensors
Development of micro-robotic manipulators and open source cell library
Development of RF-MEMS devices and energy harvesters

The lab will develop MEMS devices in strong collaboration with international research groups and industry including Queens University Canada, CMC Microsystem Canada, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) Italy and CMP France.

People

Dr. Rana Iqtidar Shakoor(Principal Investigator)
Dr. Shafaat Ahmed Bazaz (Co-PI)
Dr. Muhammad Mubasher Saleem (Co-PI)

Agricultural Robotics

LUMS

Lab Aim and Scope

To realize the potential of precision agriculture and agricultural robotics technologies for higher water efficiency, enhanced agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability via peer reviewed research, industrial collaborations, prototyping new systems, creation of testbeds, job creation, trainings and enterpreneurship.

Target Outcomes

Societal Impacts

Improvements in efficiency of agricultural water usage, both on-farm and for bulk irrigation delivery.
Increased farm profitability via improved crop monitoring and precise interventions for farmers, industry and govt.
Reduction in the negative impacts of agricultural activity and enhancements in eco-friendly sectors in agriculture

Scientific Objectives

Advancing the science of sensing and mobility on agricultural fields.
Advances in high-resolution socio-hydrology using intelligent sensors, systems and actuators.
Discovery of critical spatio-temporal linkages within the Water-Food-Energy nexus.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

Progressive, corporate and small farmers; agricultural management agencies; water distribution agencies; environment protection; food industry; forestry.

Research Projects, International Collaboration

Government Agencies

Punjab Irrigtion Department (PID), Crop Reporting Service (CSR) Punjab Agriculture Department, Punjab Environment Protection Department (EPD).

National Research Institutes

US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCASW-MUET), Center for Excellence in Water Research Engineering (CEWRE-UET), Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Punjab Forestry Research Institute (PFRI), Pakistan Forestry Institute (PFI).

Private Industry

Nestle-Pakistan, Fatima Fertilizer, South Punjab Forest Company.

International Academia

University of Kaiserslautern, University of Seigen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

People

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad (Principal Investigator)
Dr Mian Muhammad Awais (Co-PI)
Dr Ahmad Kamal Nasir (Co-PI)
Dr Murtaza Taj (Co-PI)

UAV Dependability

FAST NUCES

Lab Aim and Scope

Addressing the challenges in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) development.
A major step towards self-reliance and indigenous development of UAS.
Development of novel and scalable strategies to automate the testing of UAS Avionics at two different application levels:

Software-in-the-loop testing.
Hardware-in-the-loop testing.

Target Outcomes

Highly skilled Ph.D.'s & MS graduates.
High quality research publications in top Journals and conferences.
Approach for specifying and modeling testing requirements of avionics system.
Modeling languages for modeling constraints, features specific to various UAS component.
Testing frameworks for SIL and HIL testing, which includes test case generation strategies, test data generation strategies, test sequence generation strategies and test script generation strategies for UAS systems.
Strategies for scalability, robustness, reliability testing and conformance with international standards, such as STANAG 4586.
Adapting of proposed technologies and approaches for application to Civil Drones.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

Aviation Research Innovation and Development (AVRID) at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra.
UAV Developers in Pakistan including defence and commercial organizations.

Research Projects, International Collaborations

An Integrated Toolset for Model-based Testing of Industrial Scale Software Systems.
A Product line Model Driven Engineering Approach for Generation & Testing of Mobile Application Variants.
Automated Testing of Platform Games.
Test Data Generation by Solving OCL Constraints.
An Approach for Automated Testing of Model Transformations.

People

Muhammad Zohaib Zafar Iqbal (Principle Investigator)
Muhammad Uzair Khan (Co-Principle Investigator)
Atif Aftab Ahmed Jilani (Co-Principle Investigator)
Muhammad Usman (Co-Principle Investigator)

Swarm Robotics

UET Taxila

Lab Aim and Scope

To establish a scaling solution for National Centre for Robotics and Automation by providing an application agnostic swarm intelligence platform. The lab is composed of three sub-labs, i.e., Swarm Intelligence Lab, Computer Vision and AI Lab and Decentralized Communications Lab.

Target Outcomes

Focal project is a readily deployable swarm of robots which effectively creates an emergency communication network in case of a natural disaster. The network will be used to communicate between first responders, victims and the central command centre.
Also, the lab will focus on a perimeter security system. The system will consist of multiple robots which will collaborate with each other to ensure surveillance of a given perimeter and transferring object-of-interest data to the central command centre.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).
Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR).
All Law Enforcement Agencies.
Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), Kamra.
Warehouses, agricultural companies, IoT and Big Data companies.

Research Projects, International Collaborations

Acoustics Research Lab (ARL), National University of Singapore (NUS).
Multimedia and Vision Research Group, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Kingston University, UK.
University of Carlos III, Spain.
CCNU, China.

People

Dr. Muhammad Haroon Yousaf(Principal Investigator)
Dr. Mansoor Shaukat (Co-PI)
Dr. Danish Nisar (Co-PI)
Dr. Amanullah Yasin (Co-PI)

Haptics, Human-Robotics and Condition Monitoring

NED Karachi & MUET

Lab Aim and Scope

This lab is the joint lab of NEDUET and MUET, whose aim is to execute the state-of-the-art researches and development in the field of Haptics & Human- Robotics Lab (HHR) at NED University and Condition Monitoring Systems (CMS) at Mehran University. HHR will specifically deal with the design and development of Haptic/Tele-robotic interfaces (for Disaster Management and Medical Applications) and STEM-based Education/Assistive Robots. In CMS, we aim to develop national level predictive maintenance prototype solutions that can monitor different parameters of the plant for possible maintenance before going into worst condition (i.e., shut down). Scope of the CMS is transport infrastructure i.e., Railway and Road. These works will culminate with high quality research, innovation, commercialization and consultation.

Target Outcomes

Skilled force development i.e., Training of masters/PhD graduates, and development/commercialization of the products and solutions.
Embedded System based prototype development and direct solution delivery for local industry.
Consultancy service to local industry, educational centers and industry-academic collaborations, Startups etc.
Workshops/seminars/conferences on CMS (i.e., FPGA based systems design/System â€“on-Chip) and HHR (with focused on Haptic Displays and STEM-based Education and Assistive Robots).
MoUs between partners and beneficiaries, sustainable technology driven socio-economic development

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

SUPARCO, KANUPP, Defence/ Law Agencies, NDMA, Hilal-e-Ahmer House (Red Crescent), Schools and Educational Centers, Edhi/ Chhipa Welfare Association, Hospitals (Agha Khan and Qatar), NIC Karachi, Pakistan Railway, National Highway Authority (NHA), processing and Automation industries.

Research Projects, International Collaborations

The lab is seeking strong academic and research collaboration with the focused research groups in the field of Haptics, Tele-robotics, condition monitoring, infrared thermography imaging with the following organizations/Universities/Research Centers.

Haptic Technology Research Centre (HTRC) & Human-Robotics Lab, South Korea,
Intelligent Robot Interaction Lab, UAE and Japan.
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Melbourne Australia.
City University, London.
Central Queensland University Australia
University of Malaga, Spain

People

Dr. Riaz Uddin (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Syed Riaz un Nabi Jafri (Co-PI)
Prof. Dr. Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry (Co-PI)
Dr. Tayab Din Memon (Co-PI)

Links

MUET Lab

Control Automotive and Robotics

BUITEM & MUST

Lab Aim and Scope

To promote and develop state of the art and applied scientific research in a laboratory setting.
To facilitate high quality original scientific research in robotics with direct participation of artificial agents in search and rescue applications.
To develop and deploy autonomous vehicles in Pakistan for citizens and for patrolling borders and disaster zones.
To develop intelligent social robots with the ability to interact with patients in order to regain psychological equilibrium after a disaster.

The Scope of the Lab is to develop Intelligent Social, and Search and Rescue Robotics, and autonomous vehicles; utilizing Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

Target Outcomes

Commercial disaster management cooperative robotic swarms.
Service robots which can help in public offices as well as help online retail stores and online media outlets in gauging the public sentiment about products and news events correctly.
A complete generic autonomous robot kit will consist of machine learning, machine vision and collision detection and avoidance modules for loaders.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

Disaster Management Authorities, Law Enforcement, Border Patrol.
Public Offices, Online Retail and Media Outlets.
Industrial Warehousing.

Research Projects, International Collaborations

Design and Implementation of a Bio-Inspired Snake Robot with Evolved Movement Gaits (ORIC Funded).
Social Mobile Autonomous Robot BUITEMS (SMART BUITEMS) (ORIC Funded).
Infared Reflective Coatings for Windows of Automobiles and Buildings (Collaboration with Samara State University, Russia and Bilkent University, Turkey).

People

Dr. Anayat Ullah Baloch (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Abdul Samad (Co-PI)
Dr. Muhammad Imran Qureshi (Co-PI)
Dr. Faisal Riaz (Co-PI)

Advanced Robotics and Automation

UET Peshawar

Lab Aim and Scope

As part of a response to our national challenges such as lack of agriculture technology and productive automation, the lab is involved in research and prototype development pertaining to all aspects of precision agriculture, industrial automation and biomedical devices. The labâ€™s primary focus is:

To indigenously design and develop intelligent prosthetic and orthotic devices to facilitate amputees by providing low cost solutions.
To develop new scientific methods and algorithms for controlling upper and lower limb prosthetic and orthotic devices.
To develop next generation seed sowing technology in order to achieve maximum crop yield.
To develop advanced and affordable spray systems that employ intelligent techniques to automatically match spray outputs to crop structures during application of pesticides and fertilizers on agriculture crops.

Target Outcomes

The lab intends to indigenously develop prototypes and proof-of-concepts of the following:

A 3-DOF trans-radial prosthetic hand.
Intelligent knee for lower limb amputee.
Next-gen multi-crop seed planter.
Intelligent spraying machine.

Manufacturing, patenting and commercialization of the above-mentioned prototypes as well as publication of research at local and international platforms will be the labâ€™s primary target. Related outcomes of this lab is to develop critical and practical skills of young researchers and scientists in creating intelligent robotic and automation systems.

Potential Beneficiaries/Industry

With its primary focus on developing commercially viable complete (from prototype to product) technological solutions, the lab will benefit local sectors such as agriculture (e.g., Agriculture Research Council, Himmel Tech), biomedical e.g., Pakistan Institute of Prosthetics and Orthotic Sciences (PIPOS), as well as international industrial and research partners such as Shangdong Academy of Sciences, China.

Research Projects, International Collaborations

Currently active research projects include:

Under the project â€œDevelopment of an precision seed planterâ€ in partnership with Agriculture University Peshawar, the lab has already designed, developed and prototyped first version of its seed planting machine. The product currently is under the process of commercialization supported by funding from KPâ€™s Department of Science and Technology (DoST).
Design and development of a 2-DOF prosthetic handâ€ in partnership with PIPOS. The first prototype is currently being tested on patients at PIPOS as part of the ongoing performance evaluation and analysis.

The lab is actively involved in international collaborations such as:

Shangdong Academy of Sciences, China (MOU in automation is in place).
Industrial Automation Laboratory, University of British Columbia, Canada.
The Centre for Advanced Additive Manufacturing, the University of Sheffield, UK.
International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics.
International Committee of the Red Cross.