The Institute will utilise the project outlay of Rs.96 lakh to establish a Centre of Excellence in ‘Renewable Energy Sources, Battery Management Systems and Internet of Things

Mysore/Mysuru: The Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, has awarded the prestigious FIST (Fund for Improvement of S&T infrastructure in Universities and higher educational institutions) Project to the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Mysuru. 

The FIST Project, started by DST in the year 2000, provides funding to higher education institutions in order to build strong Science and Technology infrastructure in the country. The project outlay of Rs.96 lakh will be utilised by NIE to establish a Centre of Excellence in ‘Renewable Energy Sources, Battery Management Systems and Internet of Things.’ 

The multi-disciplinary research team of faculty led by Dr. H. Pradeepa, Professor and Head, Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, who is also the Principal Investigator for the FIST Project, will be working during the project tenure of five years on the following core areas:

1. Development of high efficiency fast battery chargers for electric vehicles.

2. Sensor-less speed control of electric drives for electric vehicle application.

3. Development of control system for the proposed hardware set-up with real time interfacing and intelligent features to improve the controllability and reliability of the system

4. To conduct research on the impact of renewable energy systems in the grid and the                   power quality improvement features of grid-interfacing inverter using IoT.

The project will give a boost to the ongoing research projects in the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering. More importantly, this will also provide excellent placement opportunities for the students, who will get opportunity to execute real life projects in the emerging areas of technology. 

NIE is exploring opportunities for collaboration with leading industries and research organisations in order to ensure that the Project will lead to commercially feasible outcomes. 

The NIE-Eicher Centre for Automotive Technology (NECAT), which is imparting high quality training in automobile technologies for more than a decade, will see a major revamp, thanks to the FIST Project. The FIST Project team will work closely with NECAT to build strong training and research infrastructure in electric vehicle technology.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, NIE Principal Dr. N.V. Raghavendra said that NIE emerged successful in a highly competitive field of over one hundred Engineering Colleges and Universities all over India. 

Sixteen proposals have been accepted by DST for funding out of a total of 212 proposals submitted related to emerging areas of technology, he said adding that the NIE proposal found favour because of meeting all quality benchmarks such as multi-disciplinary approach, excellent research profile, high quality research publications from NIE faculty, faculty strength reflected by more than 50 % faculty with PhD degree, accreditation by NBA & NAAC and good track record of successfully completing several research projects. 

Incidentally, NIE was the recipient of its first FIST Project during the period 2014-2019, which focused primarily on automation technologies. The project, with a funding of Rs.97 lakh by DST, created a niche for NIE in multidisciplinary education, training and research in automation technologies, he stated.