Area of specialization:

·        Capacitive, Resistive and Inductive Sensors

·        Signal Conditioning Circuits

·        Direct-Digitizers

·        Sensors for Agriculture, Automotive and Industrial Applications

·        Measurements and Instrumentation

 

Awards & Recognitions: 

·   "Recognition on Emerging Research" award and Second Prize at the 15th International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST'15), held December 5-7, 2022, at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. [ref: https://iitpkd.ac.in/news/iit-pkd-flag-flies-high-international-conference-sensing-technology-icst15-sydney-australia]

 

·    Institute Research Award 2018 (First Rank in the department level and Second Rank in the institute level) in recognition of the quality and quantity of research work carried out as a part of doctoral research.

 

·      Best Ph.D. Thesis in Electrical Engineering- ‘Dr. M. Mukunda Rao Endowment Prize 2018’ based on the overall research performance carried out at IIT Madras.

 

·      Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award for submitting Ph.D.-M.S. thesis before 5 years at IIT Madras- Equivalent to Institute Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

 

·      IEEE Best Paper Award II at the 2016 IEEE I2MTC conference held in Taipei, Taiwan.

 

·      IEEE Student Travel Award to present the research work at 2015 IEEE I2MTC conference held in Pisa, Italy.

 

Scholar’s Achievements @ Sensors and Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory (SEIL), IIT Palakkad

·   Mr. Narayanan P.P., PhD Scholar awarded the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF), Dec 2020

·   B.Tech Students selected for the semi-final stage in Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge - Innovate Solutions for #Atmanirbhar Bharat; cash prize of Rs. 1,00,000/-; Xilinx board to develop the minimum viable prototype, Feb 2021.

 

Funded Projects:

 

Sl.No	Project Name	Role	Funding Agency	Duration	Budget
1	An Accurate and Efficient Parallel R-C Digitizer for Moisture Sensing	PI	SRG-SERB	Dec 2020 - Dec 2022	28 Lakh (INR)
2	Cyber-Physical Systems in Collaboration with Artificial Intelligence for Smart Agriculture	Co-PI	DST	July 2021- Sept 2025	374 Lakh (INR)
3	Design, Development and Validation of Smart Weather Station for Crop Yield Enhancement	PI	CSR-Western India KINFRA Ltd.	Feb 2023 – Mar 2023	2.7 Lakh (INR)
4	Smart-Agri-Tech: Development and Testing of Smart Farming	PI	Institute Project	Sept 2021 – Aug 2025	170 Lakh (INR)
5	Detector and alarm systems for fence breaches	PI	CSR & TECHIN	Dec 2021 – June 2022 [completed]	2 Lakh (INR)
6	Design and development of a portable emergency ventilator for COVID-19 patients (Electrical and Control aspect)	PI	CSR- Federal Bank	April 2020 - Oct 2020 [completed]	6 Lakh (INR)

 

International Conference Publications:

[10] Byju C. and V. Sreenath, "An Enhanced Voltage Amplifier Scheme Insensitive to Cable Parasitic Capacitance for Interfacing Piezoelectric Sensors," IEEE  International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 2023 (accepted for presentation).

[9] Narayanan P.P., V. Sreenath, Jalakam Venu Madhava Sai, S. B. Kavya Preetha and Karthi Balasubramanian, "A Novel Relaxation Oscillator based Single-Element Type Inductance-to-Time Converter", Fifteenth International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST), 2022. [organizers: Macquarie University North Ryde Campus, Sydney, Australia].

[8] Narayanan P.P., V. Sreenath, R. Rahul Raja, V Sowbaranic Raj and Karthi Balasubramanian, "An Efficient Inductance-to-Digital Converter Insensitive to Coil Resistance of Differential Type Inductive Sensors", Fifteenth International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST), 2022. [organizers: Macquarie University North Ryde Campus, Sydney, Australia].

[7] Narayanan P. P and V. Sreenath, "A Novel Single-Element Inductance-to-Digital Converter with Automatic Offset Eliminator," IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), Glasgow, Scotland (virtual conference), May 2021. (DOI: 10.1109/I2MTC50364.2021.9459925) 

[6] Pinku Sebastian, Narayanan P. P and V. Sreenath, "A Switched-Capacitor CVC and CFC for Capacitive Sensors Representable using π-Model," IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), Glasgow, Scotland (virtual conference), May 2021. (DOI: 10.1109/I2MTC50364.2021.9459993)

[5] V. Sreenath and B. George, " A Novel Closed-Loop SC Capacitance-to-Frequency Converter with High Linearity," IEEE  International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), pp. 664-668, Torino, Italy, May 2017. 

[4] V. Sreenath, K. Semeerali and B. George, "A Resistance-to-Digital Converter Possessing Exceptional Insensitivity to Circuit Parameters," IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), pp. 143-147, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2016. 

[3] R. Gupta, V. Sreenath and B. George, "A Modified RDC with an Auto-Adjustable SC Source Enabled Auto-Calibration Scheme," IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium, pp. 94-99, Catania, Italy, 20-22 April 2016. 

[2] V. Sreenath and B. George, "A direct-digital interface circuit for sensors representable using parallel R-C model," IEEE  International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), pp. 138-142, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2016. 

[1] V. Sreenath and B. George, "A Novel Switched-Capacitor Capacitance-to-Digital Converter for Single Element Capacitive Sensors," IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), pp. 381-386, Pisa, Italy, May 2015. 

 

Journal Publications:  

[5] V. Sreenath and B. George, "An Improved Closed-Loop Switched Capacitor Capacitance-to-Frequency Converter And Its Evaluation," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 67, no. 5, pp. 1028-1035, May 2018. 

[4] V. Sreenath and B. George, "A Robust Switched-Capacitor CDC," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 18, no. 14, pp. 5985-5992, July 2018. 

[3] V. Sreenath, K. Semeerali and B. George, "A Resistive Sensor Readout Circuit with Intrinsic Insensitivity to Circuit Parameters and its Evaluation," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 66, no. 7, pp. 1719-1727, July 2017. 

[2] V. Sreenath and B. George, "A Switched-Capacitor Circuit-Based Digitizer for Efficient Interfacing of Parallel R-C Sensors," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 17, no. 7, pp. 2109-2119, April 2017. 

[1] V. Sreenath and B. George, "An Easy-to-Interface CDC With an Efficient Automatic Calibration," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 65, no. 5, pp. 960-967, May 2016.

 

Research Experience:

Developed novel, high accuracy, interfacing circuits suitable for capacitive, resistive, and R-C sensors. The developed interfacing schemes are directly applicable to sense numerous physical parameters in scientific and industrial applications such as angle, humidity, touch, displacement, level, fluid flow, soil water content, and position. The realized signal conditioning schemes provide direct digital output without any dedicated Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and possess greater noise margin, processing power and increased versatility.

Salient points of the work done are:

·        Developed Capacitance-to-Digital Converter (CDC) that is easy to interface with the sensor and provide the best dynamic range even when a large offset is present in the sensor.                         

         >    The calibration process of the offset capacitance is executed automatically without any manual intervention.

         >   Excitation is derived from a dc reference source thereby achieving higher accuracy compared to sinusoidal excitation.

·        A novel digitizer that accurately provides the value of the change in capacitance (ΔC) and resistance (ΔR) of a parallel R-C sensor.                                                                                   

        >    For the first time, a direct digital converter has been developed for interfacing parallel R-C sensor using DC excitation source.

        >    An efficient automatic calibration process was developed that provides final output independent of the offset values of parallel R-C sensors and maintains negligible cross-sensitivity between ΔC and ΔR measurements.

·        Novel readout circuits for interfacing single element capacitive and resistive sensors.                   

       >    The digital output obtained from the developed interfacing schemes possesses exceptional insensitivity to the non-ideal circuit parameters and their drift.

      >    Highly effective for accurate measurements of sensor capacitance and resistance even if exposed to variations in measurement conditions such as temperature that can deviate the values of the circuit parameters drastically.

·        Realized a Capacitance-to-Frequency Converter (CFC) with a higher update rate compared to the existing integrating type CDCs.                                                                                                

        >    CFC operates in an efficient feedback mechanism that ensures the final output is insensitive to the errors due to the non-linearity and non-ideal circuit parameters of the units employed.

        >    The developed CFC achieves the best accuracy and linearity performance among the prior CFC topologies.

Ph.D.

·        Mr. Narayanan P. P. (Jan 2020 - ) [Prime Minister's Research Fellow (PMRF), Jan 2021 - ]

·        Mr. Byju C. (Jan 2021 - ) [Part-time Scholar]

·     Mr. Muhamed Jamshir (Jan 2022 - ) [Part-time Scholar]

M.S.

·        Mr. Pinku Sebastian (Jan 2020 - ) [Part-time Scholar]

·        Mr. VSS Srikar Emany (July 2022 - )

Project Staff

·        Mr. Vishnu Raj V J (Nov 2021 - )

·        Mr. Sharan Vishnu Kumar (Oct 2021 - )

·        Ms. Akshaya Murali (Sep 2022 - )

 

Research Positions in Sensors, Measurements and Instrumentation | Electrical Engineering, IIT Palakkad

Looking for candidates interested in the following: sensors, signal conditioning circuits/interfacing circuits, embedded systems in instrumentation and measurement, direct digital converters for resistive, capacitive, inductive, and piezoelectric sensors, application-oriented sensor design, and development in agriculture/automotive/industrial domains.

Skills required: analog circuit design, PCB layout, and microcontroller programming. 
Research/working experience in circuit design and sensor development/prototyping is desirable.

Eligibility: BE/BTech in Electrical, Electronics, and Communication, Instrumentation. 

If you are interested in this research position, submit details here (https://forms.gle/KB4LuTzaeuvxEaobA) and notify me via mail (sreenath [at] iitpkd.ac.in).