NUST College of E&ME
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:
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.
All NCRA Labs, Local industry, Researchers in robotics, Start-ups.
NUST College of E&ME
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.
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.
Local agricultural industry, farmers. Patients with accidental and by birth imputation. Local security agencies, who will use UGVs.
UET Lahore & UCP Lahore
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.
ITU Lahore
No text available.
Air University
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.
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.
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.
LUMS
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.
Progressive, corporate and small farmers; agricultural management agencies; water distribution agencies; environment protection; food industry; forestry.
Punjab Irrigtion Department (PID), Crop Reporting Service (CSR) Punjab Agriculture Department, Punjab Environment Protection Department (EPD).
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).
Nestle-Pakistan, Fatima Fertilizer, South Punjab Forest Company.
University of Kaiserslautern, University of Seigen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
FAST NUCES
UET Taxila
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.
NED Karachi & MUET
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.
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.
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.
BUITEM & MUST
The Scope of the Lab is to develop Intelligent Social, and Search and Rescue Robotics, and autonomous vehicles; utilizing Machine Learning and Deep Learning.
UET Peshawar
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 lab’s primary focus is:
The lab intends to indigenously develop prototypes and proof-of-concepts of the following:
Manufacturing, patenting and commercialization of the above-mentioned prototypes as well as publication of research at local and international platforms will be the lab’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.
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.
Currently active research projects include:
The lab is actively involved in international collaborations such as:
Central Project Director/Chairman
Dr. Umar Shahbaz Khan is currently working in the field of robotics and mainly towards the development of myo-electric controlled prosthesis. In 2016 he secured funding for this project from Ignite for an amount of PKR 14.12 Mn, the project is near completion phase. Within this project they have been able to develop the mechanical gripper and embedded control for patients with upper limb amputation. The prototype has been tested on one patient, and two more limbs are being developed for two more patients. This product has been launched as a startup called myobionics. Besides this he is Co-PI to a project for development of lower limb active prosthesis which is funded by PSF worth 2.7 million. His area of interests includes robotics, Mechatronics, embedded systems and image processing. Currently he is the head of Mechatronics Engineering Department at NUST College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.
PI Robot Design and Development Lab
Dr. Javaid Iqbal did his PhD in the field of mobile robotics and machine vision in 2001 from UNSW Australia, furthermore he did his Post Doc from UNSW Australia in 2006 in the field of multifunctional robotic manipulators. In this research, a hyper-redundant Reconfigurable Modular Manipulator System (RMMS) was designed and built to implement the Modular Decentralized (MDC) technique in a real world environment. From an initial design, five modules were constructed and control algorithms embedded appropriate to their position in a five-segment robotic manipulator. A stereoscopic vision system was attached to the end of the manipulator, which supplied real time data on a goal in 3D Cartesian space. He has many journals and conferences to his name and is one of the leading researcher in the field of robotics in the country.
Co-PI Robot Design and Development Lab
Mohsin Tiwana received his B.E. degree in Mechatronics engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan, in 2007, and won Rectors Gold Medal. For his pioneering work on artificial limb design, he was given the presidential award. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical engineering from University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia and won global innovation award in 2012. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Technology Transformer of the Year Award by CRDF Global, USA. In 2015, he was conferred with Presidents Gold Medal for Innovation & Commercialization & was also awarded the National Excellence Award. At IROS 2016, he was runners up in Robotics Entrepreneurship Forum. Dr Tiwana has been a guest speaker at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and many other prestigious organizations. His research interests lie in tactile sensors, wireless network systems, myo-electric prostheses and minimally invasive surgery robots.
Co-PI Robot Design and Development Lab
Computer vision consultant and an electrical engineer with 14 years of experience in industry and academia. Currently working as an independent consultant for XYZPrinting Inc. Taiwan, Taiwan Tech (NTUST), and Tech Valley. Also, a full time faculty member at the department of Mechatronics engineering, NUST Pakistan. I have worked on automated analysis of visual cues, to track moving object using drones, and in precision agriculture for fruit detection, fruit counting, and fruit shape modeling. I have worked on different imaging sensor including depth sensor for agriculture and surveillance applications. I developed a mobile application that reconstruct the 3D scene using mobile camera by using structure for motion techniques (XYZPhoto3D is now available on Play Store). I recently published a patent with XYZPrinting company in Taiwan and US.
Co-PI Robot Design and Development Lab
Senior Instructor (Director Academics) CEME, NUST, Pakiistan
Nasir Rashid is Ph.D in NeuroRobotics from NUST Pakistan and designated as Senior Instrctor (Director Acedemics) at CEME, NUST, Pakistan. He is currently working in the field of biomedical engineering (Brain Computer Interface for an artificial limb). He has a number of publications in national and international journals and conferences. He has developed an onboard diagnostic scanner for the Army which has qualified the trails and an order of 25 pieces has been received. These scanners are under manufacturing and will be given to Pak Army for use in the field.
PI Robot Maker Lab
Assistant Professor, Head of Department of Mechatronic Engineering Department, College of EME, NUST Islamabad
Dr. Amir Hamza received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from KFUPM, Saudi Arabia in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Mechatronics Engineering, NUST College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. He did his Master in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea and Undergraduate in Mechatronics Engineering form NUST. He has worked as Research Associate at Hyundai/Kia Automotive Research Center in Seoul. His research interests include manufacturing and materials with emphasis on robotics and clean energy applications. He has completed funded project worth 20 Mn SAR in KSA. He also has a US Patent as inventor of a manufacturing process of high temperature sealing material for Ion Transport Membranes.
Co-PI Robot Maker Lab
HoD Electrical Engineering Department, NUTECH Islamabad
Dr. Nauman Razzaq’s prior research was in in the domain biomedical and signal processing. He has developed a portable, high resolution digital ECG machine and Intra-cardiac Signal Acquisition, Analysis and Display (ISAAD) System under ICT fund with mutual collaboration of NUST and AFIC/NIHD. He has also worked on SPECT and CT image fusion project in AFIC/NIHD. He has many journals and conferences to his name and is one of the leading researcher in the field of biomedical in the country.
Co-PI Robot Maker Lab
Assistant Professor, Mechatronic Engineering Department, College of EME, NUST Islamabad
Dr. Danish Hussain’s prior research was in the field of atomic force microscopy based nano robotics. He has worked in the State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems, Harbin Institute of Technology. He has many journals and conference papers to his name and is one of the leading researchers in the field of robotics in the country.
PI Agricultural Robotics Lab
Department Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Science and Engineering
Dr. Abubakr Muhammad is a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering and the founding director of the Center for Water Informatics & Technology (WIT) at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) -- Pakistan’s premier private research university. In 2005, he received Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology where his doctoral thesis won the best dissertation award. Before joining LUMS in 2008, he was a postdoctoral researcher first at the University of Pennsylvania and then at McGill University. He has won fellowships or held visiting professorial positions at other top institutes including the University of Oxford, International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST). His current interests are at the intersection of environment, technology, and society; covering topics related to hydro-informatics, precision agriculture, robotics and the impacts of artificial intelligence on society.
Co-PI Agricultural Robotics Lab
Professor, Department of Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering
Dr Mian Muhammad Awais is a tenured professor at the Department of Computer Science at LUMS. Dr. Awais received his Ph.D. from Imperial College, University of London. Prior to joining LUMS, Dr. Awais conducted European Union research and development projects for the UK based SME. His Ph.D. work related to the development of online models for parametric estimation of solid fuel-fired industrial boilers. Dr Awais has also conducted research work on a class of iterative methods pertinent to Krylov subspaces for optimization, such as the oblique projection and implicitly restarted model reduction methodologies. His current research focus is on performance enhancement of soft computing, lazy learning algorithms, knowledge generation, knowledge engineering, knowledge integration and knowledge management in an industrial setting.
Co-PI Agricultural Robotics Lab
Dr. -Ing. Ahmad Kamal Nasir is director of Engineering Laboratory and Co-PI of National Agriculture Robotics Lab at LUMS. He is an assistant professor of electrical engineering at LUMS. He received his PhD in Mobile Robotics in 2014 from University of Siegen Germany on Cooperative SLAM. As a graduate student, he also obtained two masters degrees in Mechatronics from Uni-Siegen and UET Lahore. Before that, he completed his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from UET Lahore, Pakistan. He has also worked in industry as product development manager at the research and development department of MicroTech Industries, Lahore, Pakistan. In 2014, he has joined LUMS. He is teaching mobile robotics and engineering workshop courses for both graduate and undergraduate students at LUMS. He has also given many talks at various international and national events. His current research projects include the development of unmanned aerial and ground systems for mapping, precision agriculture, and forestry applications.
Co-PI Agricultural Robotics Lab
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, School of Science and Engineering
Dr. Taj earned his Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees in electronic engineering and computer science from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), United Kingdom, in 2009 and 2005, respectively. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, Pakistan. His research interest lies in the area of Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing. In particular, he is interested in detection and tracking of object in 2D and 3D scenes and in automatic generation of 3D models from raw point cloud data. At LUMS he is a director of Computer Vision Lab (a research group within LUMS computer science department) and a director of Technology for People Initiative (TPI) (a research and development group at LUMS that develop solution to leverage technology to catalyze development in the public sector and improve data accessibility to facilitate good governance).
PI MEMS Sensor Design and Test Lab
Professor and Chair, Department of Mechatronics and Biomedical Engineering, Air University, Islamabad
Dr. Rana Iqtidar has been actively involved in the development of MEMS based sensors and actuators. His PhD research work was mainly focused on the MEMS inertial sensors with wide operating range and robustness. In his PhD research, he developed new dynamical systems and structural designs for efficient non-resonant as well as resonant micromachined vibratory gyroscopes fabricated through low-cost commercially available standard MEMS processes, operating at low operation voltage and smaller in size compared to previously available designs. Currently, Dr. Rana Iqtidar is supervising one PhD and six MS students in the area of MEMS. They are developing micro-accelerometers, energy harvesters, micro-grippers and displacement amplification devices. Besides his research activities in MEMS, he developed a Class 1,000 clean room facility to install optical lithography and etching equipment.
Co-PI MEMS Sensor Design and Test Lab
Dr. Shafaat Bazaz graduated from NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi in 1989. He completed his Masters from Université de Franche Comté, Besançon, (France) and Ph.D from Institute National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) Toulouse (France) in 1994 and 1998 respectively. He worked in Technical University of Denmark (DTU) during 1999-2000 as Research Assistant Professor. There, he supervised CAD for MEMS project funded by Denmark Technical Research Council. From 2000-2006, he worked in CMC Microsystems in Canada as Senior Staff Scientist in Microsystem Engineering. His main responsibility was to provide design, fabrication and test services through fabless design manufacturing network to 22 Canadian universities in the area of MEMS and Microfluidics. At present, he is leading CASE as Dean Academics. He is making efforts to develop engineering and management programs in such way that the graduate students may be able to create their own products thus creating jobs for others.
Co-PI MEMS Sensor Design and Test Lab
Dr. Mubasher has both MS and PhD in the field of MEMS and has been actively involved in the MEMS design, modeling, fabrication and testing for the last 10 years. His area of specialization are RF-MEMS (switches, phase shifters, varactors, filters), energy harvesters at microscale, micro mirrors and reliability issues related to MEMS devices. He completed his PhD in the RF-MEMS design and reliability analysis from Politecnico di Torino, Italy in 2015 in collaboration with Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Trento, Italy, for a European Space Agency (ESA) project. He won the best PhD research award for the year 2015 at Politecnico di Torino, Italy and also Won the CoventorWare & MANCEF MEMS Research Proposal Competition, USA, 2010. He is currently supervising a number of MS and PhD students. He is also member of the organizing committee for National Engineering Robotics Contest and has also worked as publication chair for the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence 2016.
PI Human-Centered Robotics Lab
Associate Professor, Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
He is founding member of the department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering at UET Lahore which runs one of the oldest mechatronics programs in the country. The establishment of the labs in the department was conducted with ~40M PKR in 2002. He later also conducted the strengthening of mechatronics labs with ~ 17M PKR grant in 2013. Currently, he is the Director of AI & Robotics Lab in the department. He has also generated a revenue of >10M (2013-2017), for the university, through industrial services.
Co-PI Human-Centered Robotics Lab
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Dr Muhammd Ahsan is serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechatronics and Control, UET Lahore since 2016. He has done his PhD in Computer Science from Duke University USA. His research interest include Collaborative Robots, Fault Tolerant Quantum Computing & Controls and Intelligent Systems.
Co-PI Human-Centered Robotics Lab
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Dr. Mohsin Rizwan is serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechatronics and Control, UET Lahore since 2013. He primarily teaches mathematical modeling of dynamic systems and their controls. His research interests cover the broad spectrum of optimal and robust control systems. Specifically, he is interested in mathematical modeling of mixed-disciplinary and microscale System, their controls alongside microscale friction and its effects on MEMS dynamics. Prior to joining UET Lahore, he was serving as Design Engineer in General Electric, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA. He has done his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of Texas Arlington, USA where he also served as Research Associate/Adjunct Faculty. (UT Arlington, 2012). He did his graduation in Mechanical Engineering from UET Lahore.
Co-PI Human-Centered Robotics Lab
Department of Mechanical, Mechatronics & Manufacturing Engineering, UET Lahore (Faisalabad Campus), Faisalabad, Pakistan
Dr. Hafiz Farhan Maqbool is working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechatronics & Control Engineering UET Lahore, Faisalabad Campus. He received the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He received his M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea and B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Mechatronics and Control Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. His research interest includes biomechatronics, lower limb biomechanics, prosthetics and robotics. He is an author of 2 Journal publications, 10 peer reviewed International Conferences and 2 abstract papers.
Co-PI Human-Centered Robotics Lab
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering department, University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
Dr. Zohaib Aftab is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Central Punjab Lahore. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from UET Lahore in 2006 before leaving for France to pursue higher studies. He completed his Master’s in Automatic Systems and Robotics in 2009 from Ecole Centrale Nantes, France, while his Ph.D. research focused on the Humanoid balance recovery control. During his stay abroad, he got the opportunity to work at renowned research institutes in Robotics, while he held the fellowship from the Rhone-Alpes region. His research interests include biped locomotion and assistive walking devices for rehabilitation. He is a member of IEEE and ISPRM societies.
PI Swarm Robotics Lab
He is currently working as Associate Professor and Director postgraduate studies in the Department of Computer Engineering. He holds his Ph.D. in Computer Vision from UET Taxila. He is actively involved in computer vision research particularly in the areas of object detection, object recognition, scene understanding and action/activity recognition. He has an active research collaboration with Prof. Dr. Sergio A. Velastin (Professor of Applied Computer Vision) Queen Mary University of London and University of Carlos III Madrid, Spain. He has supervised 20+ M.Sc. research thesis, and 5 Ph.D. students are working under his supervision right now. He has published a number of papers in national and international conferences and journals. He is also working as Editor, reviewers and program committee member for various journals and conferences respectively. He is the recipient of HEC Best University Teacher Award for the year 2012-2013.
Co-PI Swarm Robotics Lab
He is currently the Director of Robotics at CASE and Vice President of Pakistan’s IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). He holds a PhD degree in Swarm Intelligence and Multi-Agent Robotic Systems from National University of Singapore (NUS). He has an extensive experience of robot development spanned over a period of 14 years. His mentored teams have won over 57 national titles such as NERC, ABU-Robocon, P@SHA Awards, NASCON and COMPPEC, etc. Internationally, his supervised team won the Asia’s largest and world’s second largest underwater robotics competition, i.e., Singapore AUV Challenge, in 2017. He has multiple international publications in the field of Swarm Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems including top tier conferences and journals such as ICRA, IEEE Oceans and Adaptive Behavior. He is also a recipient of President’s Gold Medal for his exemplary academic performance during his master’s degree at NUST.
Co-PI Swarm Robotics Lab
He is currently the head of Wireless Signal Processing (WSP) group at CASE, and Project Technical Lead at CARE within the Software Defined Radio (SDR) group, since 2015. He holds a PhD degree in Electrical and Communication Engineering from Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany. He has over 8 years of industrial research experience in Germany (including 3 years at Nokia Siemens Networks, 2 years at Nomor Research, 2.5 years at Intel). Earlier, he completed his bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Pakistan in 2004, and his Masters in Communication Engineering from TUM, Germany in 2006, both with honors. Dr. Nisar has proven technical excellence in the field of wireless communications and networking, with over 30 international research publications (including 8 journal publications) with over 200 citations and 3 international patents.
Co-PI Swarm Robotics Lab
He holds a PhD degree in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence from University of Nantes, France. His current research interests are Big Data analytics to solve social problems of Pakistan. He has multiple international publications in the same field or research.
PI Haptics, Human- Robotics and Condition Monitoring Systems Lab
Assistant Professor, Director ORIC, Department of Electrical Engineering, NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi.
Dr. Riaz Uddin received his BE and M.Engg degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering, from NED University of Engineering and Technology in 2005 and 2008, respectively. He received his PhD Degree in Mechatronics in 2016 from (Human-Robotics Lab) GIST, South Korea. His PhD research is based on research projects from the international industries/organizations such as Agency for Defense Development (ADD Korea), National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning and Industrial fusion strategic technology development program, Basic Research Projects in High-tech Industrial Technology, and Global Frontier R&D Program, Ministry of Industries, Korea. In addition, he is also working as Deputy Management Representative ISO 9000 / Deputy Director Quality Enhancement Cell of the University. Due to his vast experience in Haptics/ Tele-robotics, he is also looking after the domain for the design and development of Haptic Teleoperation Setup for Disaster Management for his lab at NCRA.
Co-PI Haptics, Human- Robotics and Condition Monitoring Systems Lab
Dr. Syed Riaz un Nabi is currently serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering (NED UET). He did his PhD in Robotics from Italian Institute of Technology-University of Genoa (Italy) in 2013. His research topic was Multi Robot Simultaneous Localization and Mapping in Structured Environments. In 2015, he got opportunity to do post doctoral research in ITC-University of Twente (Nederland) where he worked on designing and implementation of 3D indoor modelling solution using 2D laser scanners. After finishing his post doctorate in 2017, he resumed his duties in NED UET and currently teaching and supervising six ME/PhD students.
Co-PI Haptics, Human- Robotics and Condition Monitoring Systems Lab
Lead PI, Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Mehran UET, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan.
He is Distinguished National Professor and the Dean Faculty of Electrical Electronics and Computer Engineering at Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan. He did his PhD from School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK in 1990. He is having teaching and research experience of more than 35 years. His area of research interest includes Emeddeded Systems, conditioning monitoring, and WSN applications in structure health monitoring. He has evaluated more than dozen PhD thesis at national level. His list of research publication crosses to over 60 in national and international journals, IEEE and ACM proceedings. Also, he has Chaired Technical Sessions in USA, UK, China, UAE, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Pakistan, Denmark, Japan and Belgium.
Co-PI Haptics, Human- Robotics and Condition Monitoring Systems Lab
Dr. Tayab Memon received a BE (Hons) Electronics Engineering (First Class) and a PG Diploma Telecommunication and Control Engineering (First Class) from Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2006 respectively. He received PhD from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Melbourne, Australia in 2012. His research interests include embedded systems, FPGA, condition monitoring systems, and fault detection and identification systems. He has published more than 35 research articles in highly reputed refereed international journals/conferences that are further cited and extended by leading scientists, press of prominent universities. He is frequent visitor of the ICTP center for workshops/trainings related to cutting-edge technological advancements. He has also delivered several invited talks at various universities and conferences.
PI Control, Automotive and Robotics Lab
Dr. Anayat Ullah specializes in 3D Nanoimprint for NIR Fabry-Pérot Filter Arrays: he has worked on Stress Relaxation in Dual Ion Beam Sputtered Nb2O5 and SiO2 Thin Films: Application in a Fabry-Pérot Filter Array with 3D NanoImprinted Cavities. One of his recent works is Modelling of multilayer dielectric filters based on TiO2 /SiO2 and TiO2 /MgF2 for fluorescence microscopy imaging. He has also worked extensively on Stress Optimization for a MEMS Multilayer Fixed-Fixed Beam. Previously, he has earned his Ph.D. from University of Kassel, Germany. Most recently, he has been working on snake-like search and rescue robots in cooperation with ORIC.
Co-PI Control, Automotive and Robotics Lab
Dr. Abdul Samad Khan is a fulbright scholar and earned his Ph.D from University of Georgia, USA, he has worked extensively on Algorithms. Stochastic k-Tree Grammar and Its Application in Biomolecular Structure Modeling. He has also published his work on Polynomial kernels collapse the W-hierarchy. Most recently his area of interest has been Deep Learning & Its applications in Robotics. He is particularly interested in Self-Driving cars and autonomous robots that can interact with people in disaster zones.
Co-PI Control, Automotive and Robotics Lab
Muhammad Imran received the B.Eng. degree in electronic engineering from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, Pakistan, in 2007, the M. Sci. degree in electrical engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2012, and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the Florida State University, USA, in 2016. He is currently working as Assistant Professor in the department of electrical engineering, faculty of information and communication technology, Balochistan university of information technology, engineering & management sciences, Quetta, Pakistan. His research interests are in digital image processing, digital image watermarking, steganography, image fusion, and satellite image enhancement.
Co-PI Control, Automotive and Robotics Lab
Associate Professor Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST)
Mr. Faisal Riaz an assistant professor at computer Science and IT department at MUST AJK has published 3 books, 14 research articles and 15 international conference papers. During his PhD, one of his major contribution includes research on the first autonomous vehicle of Pakistan. The basic purpose of this research was to design a human inspired truly autonomous vehicle, which makes decision while using both cognitive and emotional cues. Emotional Enabled Autonomous vehicle (EMO) has been designed as a cheap autonomous vehicle for a small family while keeping in mind the purchasing power of the common people as well as comparing it with Google car and tesla. Furthermore, he has also developed the first Smart City prototype concept in Pakistan. For his excellent research in the field of autonomous vehicles, he has been awarded IDE@L Excellence award (Hall of Fame) 2018.
PI UAV Dependability Lab
Director Islamabad Campus, Associate Professor, FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad
Zohaib Iqbal is an Associate Professor at FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. He has over 14 years of experience of teaching, research, and development. He is a recipient of a number of research grants from several organizations worth over Rs 140 Million. He has 36+ research publications in top quality international research venues with an H-index of 17. His work has been cited by eminent scholars of the area with a total citation count of over 1000. The focus of his research is in the area of dependable development of critical software systems. His research work focusing on various approaches to automated software engineering and software system testing across a wide range of areas, including, cyber-physical systems, real-time embedded systems, mobile and applications. He is also a recipient of ACM SIGSOFT distinguished paper award and productive scientist of Pakistan award for 2016, 2017 and 2018. He is a senior member of IEEE and the founding President of Pakistan Software Testing Board, a country representative of International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB).
Co-PI UAV Dependability Lab
Assistant Professor, Quest Lab, FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad
Muhammad Uzair Khan is an Assistant professor at FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. He is a Senior Member IEEE and responsible for research on software in the loop testing of UAS systems. He has over 16+ years of experience and is the recipient of a number of research grants from industry organizations as well as semi-government organizations such as IGNITE National Technology Fund. He has 15+ research publications in top quality international research venues with an H-index of 6. As part of a team of proposing the dependable UAV lab, he has successfully completed a number of industry-driven research projects ranging from safety-critical applications such an evaluation and development of avionics applications on Real-time ARINC 653 compliant operating systems to the development of novel solutions for automated testing and quality assurance of various industry software.
Co-PI UAV Dependability Lab
Assistant Professor, Quest Lab, FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad
Atif Aftab Ahmed Jilani is currently an Assistant Professor at FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. He will be responsible for the Hardware-in-the-loop testing domain in UAV dependability Lab. He has over 12 years of experience, which includes teaching industry-oriented courses at the university and conducted applied research in the area of model-based software engineering and software testing. He has 10+ research publications in top quality international research venues. The focus of his research is on developing strategies for testing, transformation, and generation of models and code. In his previous work, he targeted testing of model transformation code for safety-critical systems according to various international standards, including DO-178C. He worked on several industrial projects and have acquired training of safety-critical systems development.
Co-PI UAV Dependability Lab
Assistant Professor, Quest Lab, FAST-National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad
Muhammad Usman, is a senior scientist at Quest Lab, FAST- National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. In the UAV dependability Lab, he will ensure the adaption of the developed technologies for civilian unmanned aerial systems. He has over 11 years of industry and research experience with expertise in model-driven engineering, product line engineering and has extensive exposure to working with industry partners. He has successfully completed and delivered a number of projects relating to business-critical applications with various industry partners and has a number of publications in top quality research venues in software engineering domain. He has an H-index of 7 and his work has been cited over 200 times. His research is primarily focused on solving industrial problems related to product line engineering and automated software engineering.
PI Advanced Robotics and Automation Lab
Professor, Dept. of Mechatronics Engineering, UET Peshawar
Prof Dr Muhammad Tahir Khan received Master’s degree in Mechatronics from University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and PhD degree from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1999, and 2010, respectively. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Industrial Automation Laboratory at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada for two years until January 2012. Currently, he is professor at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan. His research interests include Robotics, and Intelligent Control Systems.
Co-PI Advanced Robotics and Automation Lab
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Mechatronics Engineering, UET Peshawar
Muhammad Tufail received an MSc degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Asian Institute of Technology (2007) and a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering (with specialization in Manufacturing & Mechatronics) from University of British Columbia, Canada (2015). He then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Industrial Automation Laboratory at UBC (2016). He has worked as a consultant and research associate on robotics and automation projects with the industry including the Canadian oil giant Cenovus Energy. He has more than ten years of research and teaching experience including three years of teaching industrial robotics at both undergrad and graduate levels at UBC, Canada (2014-2017). Since 2017, he is working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar. His research interests include robot control, vision, haptics, and teleoperation.
Co-PI Advanced Robotics and Automation Lab
Associate Professor, Dept. of Mechatronics Engineering, UET Peshawar
Dr Izhar Ul Haq received his Ph.D. degree in manufacturing automation from Loughborough University, UK in 2009. Currently, he is working as an Associate Professor at Department of Mechatronics Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar. His research mainly focuses on the design and development of bio medical devices for prosthetics and orthosis. His other research interests include agile and reconfigurable automation systems using component based technologies. Previously, he was involved in European Commission research project titled “Radically Innovative Mechatronics and Advanced Control Systemsâ€. He also worked on project “Business Driven Automation "funded by Ford Motor Company, UK and Krause Bremen (Germany) and their supply chain partners.
Co-PI Advanced Robotics and Automation Lab
Associate Professor, Dept. of Mechatronics Engineering, UET Peshawar
Dr Kamran Shah has received his Masters in Advanced Manufacturing Technology and Systems Management and Ph.D. degree in additive manufacturing from the University of Manchester, UK in 2005 and 2011 respectively. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor at Department of Mechatronics Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar. Dr Kamran Shah has 17 years research and teaching experience with expertise in the field of additive manufacturing, industrial automation and biomedical engineering. Dr Kamran Shah has published numerous peer reviewed journal and conference papers and has been working on commercialization of previously developed precision seed planting technology and 2D prosthetic hand.
PI Industrial Monitoring and Automation Lab
Professor and Dean of Engineering, Information Technology University Lahore
Dr. Tauseef Tauqeer earned the B.E. degree in Electronics Engineering from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI), Swabi, Pakistan in 2005. He acquired the M.Sc. degree in Communication Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Microelectronics and Nanostructures, both from The University of Manchester, U.K, in 2006 and 2009, respectively at the young age of 25 years. During his studies, he was involved in the design and fabrication of InP-based low-power gigahertz-class Analog-to-Digital converters for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. As a result of his outstanding performance and research, he was conferred the award of the Best PhD student of Microelectronics and Nanostructure research group at the University of Manchester in 2008. He is currently serving as Dean of Engineering and Chairperson of Electrical Engineering Department at Information Technology University (ITU), Lahore, Pakistan. His research interests are in the field of MMICs, HBTs, Antennas, ADCs, power electronics, industrial automation and the physical modeling of III–V-based semiconductor devices.
Co-PI Industrial Monitoring and Automation Lab
Associate Professor Department of Computer Engineering, Information Technology University Lahore
Dr. Usman Younis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology University (ITU), Lahore, Pakistan. Previously, he has worked as an Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan, and as a research fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. He has obtained a hands-on experience in micro/nano-fabrication technologies, with specific applications of developing monolithically integrated optoelectronic devices. His research interests include active and passive photonic integration, optoelectronics, laser physics, applied non-linear optics, optical communications and networks.
Co-PI Industrial Monitoring and Automation Lab
Dr. M. Qasim Mehmood has received his BS degree in Electronic Engineering from International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) in 2008. Same year he started his MS (in Electronic Engineering) from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute (GIKI) and joined there as a Lecturer upon completion of his MS in 2010. He served GIKI as a lecturer till joining National University of Singapore as a PhD scholar (in Electrical and Computer Engineering) in July 2011. He completed his PhD, in January 2016, under the supervision of Prof. Cheng-wei Qiu, Prof. Aaron Danner and Dr. Teng Jinghua. His research interests were in the area of optics and nano-photonics: more precisely it included the demonstration of exotic phenomena (via ultra-thin nano-structured devices) e.g., on-chip orbital angular manipulation, beam-steering, spin-orbital coupling, three dimensional holography, polarization filtering and light absorption etc. All of his work incorporated vigorous theoretical modelling, numerical calculations and experimental investigations. He gained considerable experience of nano-fabrications at Institute of Material Research Engineering (IMRE) A*STAR Singapore and Spin Energy Lab (SEL) NUS Singapore. His PhD research-works were published in various prestigious journals such as Advanced Materials, Laser Photonics Reviews and Advanced Optical Materials etc.
