Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Group is known for its cutting edge solutions for the consumer, banking and retail industry. Dr. Roshy John, Head of TCS Robotics and Cognitive Systems Group, Kochi, Project Manager Rajaram and Reeja George, the Academic Relationship Manager for TCS Kerala visited Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham to interact with AMMACHI Labs’  MTech students and Amrita faculty. Dr. Roshy John gave an inspiring talk to students on autonomous driving vehicles and his personal project of retrofitting a Tata nano into a driverless vehicle. According to Dr. Roshy “Robotics is  becoming ubiquitous today, opening up myraid possibilities with innovations in robotics, drones and machine intelligence”. He encouraged the students to pursue robotics with passion saying “Go and make opportunities rather than go searching for it.”

During his meetings with the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Vice Chancellor Dr. P. Venkat Rangan, Prof. Rao R. Bhavani, Dr. Maneesha Ramesh, Prof. Gayathri Manikutty and other key members, he discussed TCS’s vision for robotics and ways to further collaborations in terms of student internships and collaborative projects between TCS and Amrita. MTech student Ananthakrishnan U. recently completed a two-month internship with Dr. Roshy’s Robotics group in Kochi. As Amrita is strengthening its robotics programs, it is gaining recognition on as an up-and-coming leader robotics research. On this day, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham also launched its MTech program in Automotive Engineering exclusively for TCS employees at its Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore campus. The Amrita ABB Robotics Lab, the first of its kind by an Indian university Robotics Research Lab boasts of two ROS-Industrial robots among other robots such as the Clearpath Husky Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Parrot and DJI Mini drones. ROS-Industrial provides an open-source software framework for next-generation manufacturing automation.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is planning to host an international robotics conference in 2016. The aim of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications (RAHA 2016) is to provide a platform for researchers, engineers, professionals from industry, and humanitarian workers to share knowledge about technological tools, methodologies, and applied robotic and automation solutions for humanitarian applications. For more information, visit website (coming soon!)