IIIT-H sets up robotics lab
By Our Convergence Bureau | 21 Jul 2003
Hyderabad: The Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, (IIIT-H) is setting up a robotics and artificial intelligence laboratory where the latter is expected to support a whole range of man-machine interface.
The chairman of the governing board of IIIT-H and Herbert Simon Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, Dr Raj Reddy, who was in Hyderabad to attend the second convocation of IIIT, says the Robotics Lab will seek to work on language synthesis building on human interface.
The robotics centre will conduct research on speech, language, vision control and artificial intelligence planning. The institute also proposes to conduct special courses to provide the thrill of robotics for the tenth, plus two and junior colleges.
"Experts from the Carnegie Mellon University will come to IIIT-H in January 2004 to initiate these activities along with our faculty," says IIIT-H director Rajeev Sangal.
As a part of other technological initiatives, IIIT-H is in the process of establishing a digital library, which will serve as the largest such centre in the Asia-Pacific region. This will host a digital scanning centre, which can scan about 10 lakh pages a day or about 2,000 to 3,000 books per day.
The Indian ministry of information technology and many state governments have evinced interest in the project and are participating in this major initiative, says Reddy.
