Research areas

Research Areas in which vacancies exist for January 2020 admissions

  1. Physics
    Experiment : Low temperature Transport, Condensed Matter Physics, Biophysics,
    Theory: Quantum Field Theory & String Theory, Quantum Information and Computation, Quantum phase transitions, Nuclear and Stellar Astrophysics, Biophysics.
    Computational Physics : Soft condensed Matter, Nuclear and Stellar Astrophysics
     
  2. Chemistry
    Chemical Biology and Bio-organic Chemistry, Supramolecular Self-assembly and Material Chemistry, Biophysical Chemistry and Fluorescence Spectroscopy.
     
  3. Civil Engineering
    Structural Engineering
    Water Resources Engineering
    Building Materials and structural systems
    Transportation Engineering
    Construction Engineering and Management
    Geotechnical Engineering
     
  4. Humanities and Social Sciences
    Linguistics
    English
     
  5. Mechanical Engineering
    Solid Mechanics and Design
    Contact Mechanics
    Robotics and Motion Control
    Underwater and Mobile Robots
    Experimental and numerical heat transfer analysis of energy systems
    Combustion/Propulsion
     
  6. Electrical Engineering
    • a. Communication and signal processing
      Wireless communication, design and analysis of next-generation cellular systems, cooperative communications, compressed sensing, statistical signal processing (detection and estimation theory), information and coding theory, machine learning for communication.
    • b. Power System Engineering
      Power System modelling, wide-area measurement system (WAMS), wide area monitoring, protection and control (WAMPAC), Renewable and Distributed generation, Big data analytics, machine learning and signal processing for smart grid.
    • c. Measurements and Instrumentation Measurements, sensor design, signal conditioning circuits, embedded systems in instrumentation and measurement, direct digital converters for resistive, capacitive and inductive sensors.
    • d. Control and robotics
      Stability and control issues in networked control systems with/without constraints, Event triggered state estimation with noisy measurements, learning of dynamical systems. Design and development of interesting problems with wheeled, legged, humanoid robots, medical devices,robot vision having a multidisciplinary approach. Stability analysis of Nonlinear Systems;Modeling, analysis, and control design of robotic/aerospace/mechanical systems like unmanned rolling vehicles, underwater vehicles, surface vehicles, aerial vehicles.
    • e. RF and Microwave
      Microwave and millimeter wave devices and circuits, CMOS Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits, Reconfigurable Antennas, Sub-millimeter wave devices using RF MEMS.
    • f. Digital VLSI Design
      VLSI architectures for real-time signal processing applications, Energy-efficient VLSI Systems for machine learning.
    • g. Nanoelectronics, Plasmonics & Semiconductor Devices
      Research, broadly, in semiconductor devices, modeling, fabrication and characterisation, nanoelectronics, plasmonics/optoelectronics.
       
  7. Computer Science and Engineering:
    The detailed list of areas and sub-areas of research in Computer Science and Engineering is given below.
    Areas: Computer Architecture, Compiler, Applied Cryptography and Artificial Intelligence, Multicore architecture, intelligent systems, hardware cryptography

    The following skill sets are desired:
    • Programming with one or more of the following: C/C++/scripting languages
    • Knowledge about architecture, processor, memory
    • Knowledge of Hardware Description Language (HDL) (i.e. Verilog)
    • Knowledge of compilation flow, high-level synthesis

    Motivated students who are willing to work in the following areas may apply. For outstanding students, there is possible research collaboration with the University of South Brittany, France.
     1. Area: Machine Learning (all sub-areas)
     2. Areas: Distributed and interconnected systems, Modelling, control and analysis of distributed systems
     3. Areas: Multicore Architecture, Cyber Security, Embedded Systems, Reconfigurable Systems and Computer Architecture
     4. Areas: High performance computing systems (microarchitecture, operating systems, compilers), post-silicon validation
     5. Areas: Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Graph Theory
     6. Areas: Type theory, Programming languages

 

 


Full List of research areas that exist in departments.

  1. Chemistry:
    Biophysical chemistry and molecular dynamics simulations, Mechano-chemistry, Equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of soft matter, Structure and dynamics of polymers and supramolecules, Nanostructures for Biomedicine, Materials Chemistry and Heterogeneous Catalysis, Organic macromolecules - Design, Synthesis and Applications.

    Research facilities to carry out both theoretical and experimental work are available. A High Performance Computing Cluster (HPC) consisting of 64 compute nodes, each having a dual 12-core Intel processor running at 2.2 GHz with 4 GB of RAM per core is available for faculty,research staff and students at IIT Palakkad to investigate complex research problems in science and engineering. A well-equipped chemical synthesis lab is available for the research in experimental chemistry. Analytical facilities include chromatography and spectroscopy equipment such as HPLC, LCMS, TG-DTA-MS, Bench-top NMR, FT-IR, Chemisorption, UV-vis and Fluorescence spectrophotometer. In addition to this, major research equipment such as X- ray diffractometer, Raman spectrophotometer and an electron microscope are installed at the Central Instrumentation Facility of IIT Palakkad.
     
  2. Civil Engineering:
    a) Structural Engineering:
         i. Adaptive passive control including base isolation to structural vibration problem, optimal feedback control and related study on stability, robustness, time delay and spillover phenomena, study the observability and controllability of structural system from the sensor output data, testing protocol to reproduce the prototype behavior.
         ii. Cold-formed steel structures.

    b) Water resources engineering: Climate change and climate variability impacts on water resources; Study and forecasting of extreme events; Nonpoint source pollution analysis; Hydrologic and water quality modelling.

    c) Building Materials and structural systems: Performance assessment and optimization of special concretes for structural systems such as FRC & SCC; development of design methodologies for structural systems using high performance concrete; sustainable building materials.

    d) Environmental Engineering: Water and wastewater treatment; microbial fuel cells; electrochemical treatment techniques.

    The research facilities available:
    Structural Engineering:100 kN and 500 kN Servo Hydraulic Universal Testing Machines; Actuators:100 kN, 250 kN, and 500 kN; 2D and 3D testing frames; data acquisition systems, Controlled UTMs :300 kN and 3000 kN, Speed Control motor
    Material characterization: Servo hydraulic compression / flexural testing system 3000 kN,300kN, 100 kN, 15 kN; SCC testing

    General computational facilities:
    Various analysis and design Softwares, Finite Element Method software, Spatial data analysis softwares, and High performance computing cluster of the Institute.

    General workshop: Lathe, milling, grinding and drilling machines, welding, power tools etc.
     
  3. Computer Science & Engineering:
    Algorithms and complexity, Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Type theory, Functional Programming and Proof Assistants, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Reinforcement learning, Optimisation, Computational biology, Wireless Networks, Social Networks, Computer architecture, Hardware security, Internet of Things, Reconfigurable computing, Design Automation and validation, Cyber Physical Systems.
     
  4.  Electrical Engineering:
    a. Antennas, microwave engineering and radar systems
    Microwave and Millimeter wave integrated circuits including Antennas, Radio Frequency MEMS, Microwave Engineering, Microwave Remote Sensing, Phased array Radars, Digital Beamforming radars.
    Facilities- Vector Network Analyzer, Spectrum Analyzer, Signal Generator, RF Probe station, Anechoic Chamber [all operating up to 40 GHz], PCB making systems Softwares: HFSS, Cadence

    b. Communication and signal processing
    Wireless communication, design and analysis of next generation cellular systems, cooperative communications, compressed sensing, statistical signal processing (detection and estimation theory), information and coding theory, machine learning for communication.

    c. Nanoelectronics, Plasmonics & Semiconductor Devices
    Research,broadly,in semiconductor devices and modeling,nanoelectronics, plasmonics/optoelectronics, development of instruments for experiments in nanoelectronics.
    Facilities - High performance computing cluster for multiscale simulation. Central Micro/nanofabrication Facility & Central Instrumentation Facility which are equipped with various equipments for clean room fabrication and characterisation (structural, material and electrical) of semiconductor devices: UV and e-beam lithography, spin-coater, fumehoods, sputtering; scanning electron microscopy, optical profilometer, Raman spectroscopy, DC and RF probe stations, semiconductor parameter analyzer, vector network analyzer, solar simulator Softwares - Sentaurus, Cadence.

    d. Biomedical Signal Processing and Imaging
    Brain-Computer Interface Systems
    Facilities- EEG data acquisition systems, Ultrasound research platform, FPGA-Microcontroller boards, Airborne ultrasound system
     
  5. Mathematics:
    Several Complex Variables
     
  6. Mechanical Engineering:
    Engine modelling/control ,Optical diagnostics in combustion, Fracture mechanics, Computational fluid dynamics & turbulence, manufacturing, materials and tribology. Facilities: Engine research facility, laser diagnostic lab, High performance computing cluster, 3D printing, material characterization facility etc.
     
  7. Physics:
    Quantum information theory, Non Equilibrium quantum systems, Physics of soft materials: Theory and simulations, Plasmonic systems: Experiments and Numerical simulations. Transport studies in 2D materials and perovskites.
    AdS/CFT correspondence & Quantum Field Theory. Single crystal growth of novel magnetic and electronic materials and magnetic, transport, thermodynamic investigation of them at low temperature and high magnetic field. Tuning of magnetic and electronic ground states by external perturbations like pressure.
     
  8. Humanities and Social Sciences:
    Economics : Development Economics
    Philosophy: Continental Philosophy, Phenomenology and Existentialism
    Linguistics and Culture Studies: Sociophonetics, Experimental Phonetics, Phonological Language Acquisition. Culture Studies, Indian Cinema, Gender.