Issue 1, 2021

Research Newsletter of the Indian Institute of Science Issue 1, 2021 KERNELARTPARK: Editorial INNOVATION AT PLAY Robotic avatars. Delivery drones. Remote learning labs. Read more about the futuristic challenges being pursued by a new technology innovation hub at IISc. Stories in this issue of Kernel also describe new species of vine snakes across peninsular India, Autonomous drone charging pad developed at ARTPARK/RBCCPS (Photo courtesy: RBCCPS) a greywater recycling NEW TECH HUB FOR AI AND ROBOTICS AT IISc AIMS TO ADDRESS SOCIALLY system installed in a remote AND ECONOMICALLY RELEVANT PROBLEMS Karnataka village, and “I hope patients will be comfortable in is being developed in collaboration the influence of unusual speaking with me, and would consider me with TCS and Hanson Robotics, as part midlatitude disturbances not just as a machine, but as a friend,” of a mission-mode project under the on the Indian summer announced Asha, a first-of-its-kind robotic new AI and Robotics Technology Park nurse in the country, making its debut at (ARTPARK) established recently at the monsoon. We also profile the Bengaluru Tech Summit in November Institute. the work of an earth 2020. scientist who seeks to Asha is not meant to replace a human Asha, who is learning to speak Kannada, nurse, but to be a “tool” that can be unravel the secrets of the Hindi and English, is the brainchild of used by the nurse to assist a patient ground beneath our feet. a team of IISc researchers. The robot who might be far away, explains Continued on page 2 Asha with the research team (Photo: Samarth Hada) Continued from page 1 Bharadwaj Amrutur, Professor and Chair of ARTPARK will focus largely on mission-mode explains Amrutur. “This will involve the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical projects that are relevant to society and multiple institutions, including the Ministry Systems (RBCCPS) at IISc, who leads this the economy as well as “technologically of Civil Aviation ... companies like Swiggy initiative. “The nurse could operate this audacious,” says Umakant Soni, the and Flipkart may also be interested.” robot assistant to deliver care without newly appointed CEO of ARTPARK and physically coming to the [patient’s] home.” co-founder of venture studio AIfoundry, All of these initiatives will require This can be especially helpful during IISc’s collaborator in this initiative. “AI and developing new technologies, including pandemics like COVID-19. robotics is going to lead to close to those related to 5G networks, autonomous 15.7 trillion dollars of new economic value. vehicles and manufacturing processes, Asha works via virtual reality. A headset and But India’s share might be a mere one for which testbeds will be set up at both a pair of gloves capture the human nurse’s trillion dollars, whereas China’s would be IISc and Challakere campuses. Other facial expressions and hand movements, eight trillion. If we need to reach 10 trillion technologies, such as speech-to-speech and relay them to the robot. As the nurse dollars as an economy ... we need to take translation for robotics and mechanisms for physically moves their hands around – these technology moonshots.” sharing confidential data securely, are also to open a pill bottle or take a patient’s planned. temperature – the robot performs the Another example of a socially-relevant same action. project that ARTPARK plans to pursue, In addition to cutting-edge research, titled “Project Eklavya,” is the setting up of a major focus of ARTPARK will be In the future, the interaction could be made remotely connected labs to help students “Technopreneurship” – spawning deep- more intuitive, through voice commands, in rural areas watch and perform science tech companies in the domains of AI and for example. “Five or 10 years from now, experiments in real time. “One of the big robotics, says Soni. “We are planning to we will have very good communication challenges is that in government schools in set up a venture studio in ARTPARK. Its networks. I could just speak through the rural areas, the labs will not be working or role will be to create ventures out of these smartphone, instructing the robot,” says the instruments will be broken,” says Soni. pathbreaking mission problems that we are Amrutur. “That’s a really challenging Instead of taking new equipment to these solving. We are also creating a $100 million research problem. No one in the world has areas which may be difficult and expensive venture fund to support these companies.” done it.” In theory, a nurse sitting in one to maintain in the long run, ARTPARK Student fellowships, courses and workshops state or country might be able to control will focus on setting up remote labs in for students and industry professionals are a robot next to a patient in another state urban areas where robots will operate the also on the horizon. or country. The team behind Asha is also apparatus or equipment, but students in working on developing technologies that rural schools can be given access to control What sets ARTPARK apart from other will allow the robot to display more human- the robots remotely so that they can perform technology innovation hubs around like emotions, and understand and speak in their experiments. the country is that it brings together multiple Indian languages. academic research, industry translation Yet another area of research that ARTPARK is and entrepreneurship under the same Assistive robots like Asha are one of several involved in is using drones to safely deliver roof, according to Soni. “In Silicon Valley, research challenges that ARTPARK has medicines, food or other items in urban research can travel all the way [from undertaken under the broad theme of AI areas. It plans to set up “Dronery” facilities academia] to the market in a structured and robotics. It has been set up as a non- to build these drones and also work with manner,” he says. He highlights the profit company with seed funding of Rs industry and government partners to map example of how Google was born out of 170 crore from the Department of Science out air routes or corridors for drones to research at Stanford University. “If we need and Technology’s National Mission on move smoothly across large distances. “We to come up with a company like Google Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems could set up these corridors somewhere in AI and robotics, we need to build that and Rs 60 crore from the Karnataka state from the north of the airport to the IISc research translation ecosystem in India, government. Its goal is to provide a platform Challakere campus, and have these drones and IISc has to be a pioneer in that.” to translate academic research to industry routinely deliver things to show that we and startups faster and more seamlessly. can do this kind of delivery in a safe way,” - Ranjini Raghunath KERNEL | ISSUE 1, 2021 | Pg 2 Ahaetulla farnsworthi and Ahaetulla sahyadrensis (Photos: Ashok Kumar Mallik, N S Achyuthan and Vivek Philip Cyriac) DISENTANGLING VINES A MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL TEAM HAS DISCOVERED FIVE NEW SPECIES OF VINE SNAKES ACROSS PENINSULAR INDIA Vine snakes are among the most common Wall’s vine snake (Ahaetulla isabellina) be detected by genetic analysis,” says snakes in peninsular India, found even in in the Western Ghats rainforests alone. Mallik. “Our earlier discovery of another many peri-urban areas wherever there is These species were superficially similar in deeply divergent vine snake, Proahaetulla some greenery. This species was believed their morphology (what they look like) but antiqua, suggests that the entire lineage to be widespread throughout the drier parts separated by geographic (or ecological) of vine snakes (Ahaetulla) evolved of the peninsula as well as in the Western barriers. Another morphologically distinct around 26 million years ago during the Ghats. But new research shows that this and much larger species, the long-nosed mid-Oligocene from its sister group species actually comprises several vine snake (Ahaetulla oxyrhyncha), was Proahaetulla.” different species. distributed in the lowlands and drier parts of peninsular India. Kartik Shanker, Associate Professor at CES Based on extensive sampling across says, “The discovery helps us document peninsular India, a team of researchers “All the vine snakes were assigned names species diversity but also sheds light on from the Centre for Ecological Sciences related to the locality or based on a the evolutionary history of vine snakes (CES) has now described several new morphological character, but we named in South Asia. Ahaetulla nasuta is one species of vine snakes from the region. the species Ahaetulla farnsworthi after my of the first snake names that we learned Led by former student Ashok Mallik as part favourite mad scientist who inspired me as aspiring herpetologists. One almost of his doctoral research, the team carried to become one, Dr Hubert Farnsworth from feels sad that we had to assign it to out field visits across India to collect [the cartoon] Futurama. In fact, the snake the Sri Lankan population, but it is far morphological data, tissue samples and also looks a lot like him,” says Achyuthan more exciting that we have all these new specimens to understand the patterns of Srikanthan, a researcher at CES who was species in India.” distribution and diversification of vine part of the team. snakes. The study, published in the journal The researchers also delineated the Zootaxa, was carried out in collaboration Asian vine snakes, distributed throughout Travancore vine snake (Ahaetulla with researchers SR Ganesh from the the continent, belong to the genus travancorica), separated by morphology Chennai Snake Park, Saunak Pal from Ahaetulla and the recently described and a geographic barrier from the Gunther’s the Bombay Natural History Society, and Proahaetulla.

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