Principal Investigator

Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur

Assistant Professor; Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012

Adjunct Faculty; International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems, Western Sydney University, Australia

Associated with the following research clusters at IISc:

Brain, Computation, and Data Research Group

Initiative on Quantum Technologies

Artificial Intelligence Group (AI@IISc)

Microelectronics & VLSI Design

Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur (Senior Member, IEEE) received his PhD in neuromorphic engineering at the MARCS Research Institute (Brain, Behaviour and Development), Western Sydney University in 2016. He then worked briefly as a research fellow for Defence Science and Technology, Australia. He completed his MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2007. Dr. Thakur worked as a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University with Prof Ralph Etienne-Cummings and Prof Ernst Niebur for a year before joining IISc as an Assistant Professor. In addition, Dr. Thakur has extensive industrial experience. He worked for 6 years with Texas Instruments Singapore as a senior Integrated Circuit Design Engineer, designing IPs for mobile processors. He has been trained by world leaders in the field of neuromorphic engineering, and his research expertise lies in neuromorphic computing, mixed-signal VLSI systems, computational neuroscience, probabilistic signal processing, and machine learning. His research interest is to understand the signal processing aspects of the brain and apply those to build novel intelligent systems. He is recipients of several awards such as Young Investigator Award from Pratiksha Trust, Early Career Research Award by Science and Engineering Research Board- India, Inspire Faculty Award by Department of Science and Technology- India.

Post-Doctoral Researcher

Dr. S.C.G. Kiruba Daniel is a SERB – National Post Doctoral Fellow of NeuRonICS Lab. He has completed his Ph.D in Nanotechnology from Anna University in the year 2015 and completed his Post-Doc from Instrumentation and Applied Physics Department, IISc in the year 2016. He has been trained by Academia Industry Training (AIT) Camp in EPFL, Switzerland sponsored by Switzerland and Indian Government. He got Gandhian Young technology Innovator Award with his team for his work on melamine sensing from milk in 2017. He led his start-up JK Nanosolutions to win National Level Dev Tech award (2016) from DFID, UK and DST India, Elevate 100 Award (2017) with a grant of 25 Lakhs INR, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge Award (2018) and Titan Design Impact Award (2018) with a grant of 65 lakhs.. He has around 20 publications and 8 patents contributing to 518 citations (Google Scholar) and h-index of 13. His research interests are in the development of low power and low cost nanotechnology based sensing devices.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-s-c-g-kiruba-daniel-a50a8940/

Dr. Pallab Kumar Nath is a Post-Doc Research Associate at NeuRonICS Lab. He has completed his Ph.D in Microelectronics and VLSI from IIT Kharagpur in the year 2018. He got Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Appreciation Awards with his team for the project “Smartphone based portable low cost continuous wave Doppler Ultrasound system” in the year 2018. He has teaching and research experiences of more than 5 years in various Govt. organisations. His research interests are VLSI architecture design for Image and Video processing logarithms, Embedded System Design, Biomedical Instrumentation and Neuromorphic Computing .

Nazreen P.M. is a Research Associate in the NeuRonICS Lab at IISc. She was a Direct PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IISc Bangalore and submitted her thesis in the year 2019. She received her B.Tech degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from College of Engineering Chengannur affiliated under Cochin University of Science and Technology. Her areas of interest include, signal analysis and its applications, machine learning, deep learning, sparse coding, factor graphs, sum-product algorithm and developing efficient compilers for the implementation of machine learning and deep learning in hardware.

PhD Students

Kundan Kumar is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. He received his M.E in Microelectronics from BITS Pilani University (Goa Campus) in 2016. Then he worked for a year at Thomson Reuters IP & Science division, Mumbai, which later became an independent company Clarivate Analytics. He is experienced in Prior Art Searches, Patent landscaping and analytics and has worked on various landscape projects in the domain of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, IOT and Automation. His research areas include Neuromorphic Computing, Analog IC Designs, Machine Learning and Game theory. He is also an avid traveler and a MOOC Enthusiast.

Rownick Pyne is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. He has received his B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University in 2013. Prior to joining the Ph.D. program, he had worked as a Research Associate at IIT Delhi, working in the area of wideband matching network design and energy harvesting from ambient sources for wireless sensor nodes. He was also a Junior Research Fellow at IIT Kharagpur, working in the area of Compressed Sensing based fetal ECG monitoring for point-of-care applications. His research interests include Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Neuromorphic circuits and systems and Brain computer interfacing. He is currently working in the area of neuroelectronic hybrid systems.

Prince Philip is PhD student in the Neuronics Lab. Prior to joining Neuronics Lab, he worked in the areas of analog/ digital integrated circuits in academia and industry. He taught UG level courses such as microelectronic circuits, analog and mixed signal IC design, control engineering and electrical circuits. In industry, he designed and developed OFDM based Transceiver Chip and several other circuits for wireless and biomedical applications. In addition, he worked as a consultant for a US based semiconductor company. He graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University. His interests are in neuromorphic engineering, theoretical neuroscience, analog IC design and signal processing

Abhishek Nair has Semiconductor industry experience of 5+ years in Intel and Qualcomm as hardware engineer, where he worked on implementation and validation of GPU and DSP architecture. He has done his masters in Embedded Systems from Manipal University. He has industry experience in computer architecture designs, validation and verification with expertise in GPU and DSP. He has hands on experience in C++, python along with kernel drivers. His research interests include new architecture designs with a view of performance and functional enhancement of Neuromorphic computing. High level synthesis and hardware implementation of novel architectures which includes Neural Networks and Deep learning.

Pratik Kumar is a PhD student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. He received his M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI from IIT Dhanbad. He has prior experience in the subthreshold and above threshold, analogue circuit design using current and voltage mode approach. He is familiar with programming languages such as Matlab, Python, Verilog, VHDL, Java, C++, Embedded C and Selenium. His research interests include hardware and software implementation of analogue/mixed mode neuromorphic systems for intelligent neural networks. His further interests include analogue/mixed-signal current mode subthreshold circuit design for ultra-low power based on new multi-order memory elements such as Memtranssitors, Memristors, Meminductors, Memcapacitors etc. and implementation of Deep learning, Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence in hardware. He has an industry experience of 2 Years in TCS. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratik92/ .

A. Lakshmi is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. She graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering from University of Madras. In the early years of her career, she was working in the signal processing division of Naval Physical and oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), DRDO, Kochi. In NPOL, she has been working in array signal processing. Currently she is working as scientist in Intelligent Systems and Robotics Division (ISRD) in Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), DRDO. Her research interests include computer vision algorithms which includes image de-blurring, simultaneous localization and mapping, content based image and video retrieval, relevance feedback, pedestrian detection, object detection and anomaly detection.

Master Students

Akshaya A Mukundan is currently pursuing M.Tech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. She graduated B.tech with honors from Government Engineering College, Thrissur, Kerala. Area of interest includes Digital and analog circuit designing; and pattern recognition. Currently working under Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur on the project ‘Auditory event based Unsupervised feature learning algorithm implementation on FPGA’.

Muhammed Hafees Hak is an M.Tech student in the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, IISC Bangalore. He completed his B.tech from Government Engineering College, Thrissur, Kerala in 2016 and thereafter he worked as a Management Trainee in Hindustan Aeroanautics Limited, Bangalore for a period of 6 months. Currently he is working on the project ‘Neuromorphic Auditory Saliency Implementation on FPGA For Real-Time Speech Tasks’ under the guidance of Dr.Chetan Singh Thakur.

Shilpa K.K. is currently pursuing M.Tech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. She graduated B.Tech from Government Engineering College, Thrissur, Kerala. Areas of interests include digital and analog circuit design and machine learning. Currently working on the project titled ‘auditory event-based unsupervised feature learning algorithm implementation on FGPA’.

Siddharth Chaudhary is currently pursuing M.tech. at IISc bangalore in Electronic Systems Engineering. He has completed his Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and instrumentation Engineering from Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow in 2017.Currently he is working on the project ‘Neuromorphic Auditory Saliency Implementation on FPGA For Real-Time Speech Tasks’ under the guidance of Dr.Chetan Singh Thakur.In his spare time he likes to play cricket and table tennis.

Banhimitra Kundu has an industry experience of 10 years in HAL . He has completed his BTECH in 2008 in ECE from WBUT. Prior to joining IISC as Mtech(Research) Student , he has worked in HAL on development of mission computers(Level B) and control computers(Level A)for fixed wing and rotary wing platforms on both software and hardware front . In software ,he has hands on experience in developing of application softwares and device drivers with/without using RTOS.In hardware he has developed hardware for analog sensor conditioning and single board computers using SOC’s.His research interest lies in neuromorphic computing and its hardware implementation.

Anirudh B K is pursuing M.Tech. in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc. He completed his B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) Surathkal. He worked at Samsung Semiconductor India R&D for 3 years as an RTL Design Engineer in the DRAM Team before joining IISc. His research interests include next-gen technologies such as neuromorphic systems, quantum computing and memristors.

Himanshu Kumar is pursuing M.tech in Artificial Intelligence from IISc Bangalore. He has completed his B.tech in Computer Engineering from VESIT, Mumbai affiliated to University of Mumbai. His areas of Interest are applications of ML and AI. He is currently working in the area of bio inspired neuromorphic vision. He likes to play Cricket and Table tennis.

Shubham Kumar is currently pursuing M.Tech in Artificial Intelligence at IISc Bangalore.He has completed his B.tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur. He has work experience of 2 years developing Android and iOS application.Currently working in the area of neuromorphic vision. He further likes to work on embedded circuits.

Ashok Barman.

I am currently pursuing MTech in Microelectronics And VLSI design. I did my B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. My field of interest includes Analog and Digital circuits.

Aayushi is currently pursuing M.tech at IISc bangalore in Microelectronics and VLSI and has completed Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology, Sultanpur in 2019. She is working in Neuronics lab under the guidance of Dr.Chetan Singh.

Chetan P Hanakanahalli is currently pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design at IISc Bangalore.He has completed his B.E in Electronics and communication from K.L.E Technological University, Karnataka. His areas of interests are Neuromorphic systems, Analog Computation and Analog/mixed signal circuit design. He is currently working in the domain of analog computation.

Saichand S is pursuing Mtech in Microelectronics and VLSI design at Indian Institute of Science. He has completed B.E in Electronics and Communication from University College of Engineering, Osmania University.His areas of interests include Neuromorphic Computing and Edge Computing. He has two years of experience as software Engineer at NCR corporation, Hyderabad.He is familiar with C, C++, Embedded C, Verilog, MATLAB, HTML and angular JS programming languages. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saichand-samudrala-a36b05a5

Katti Pranay

I am katti pranay pursuing microelectronics and vlsi 2019-2021 from iisc.I completed my b.tech from jntu hyderabad in 2019.I am currently working on development of analog mixed-signal system for target localization for surveillance as my M.tech project.

Vishnu Gumme is pursuing M.Tech. in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc. He completed his B.Tech. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Government College of Engineering,Amravati (Maharashtra). He is interested in the field of AI, ML based efficient digital system implementation. He is working under guidance of Dr.Chetan Singh Thakur in Neuronics lab

Research Assistants

Sathyaprakash Narayanan is working under Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur on machine learning. He is a final year Undergraduate Graduate from R.M.D Engineering College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. His final year project involves Autonomous Deep Space Maneuvering for spacecrafts using neural networks. His research interest include embedded systems and machine learning. He had represented India in MIT Hackathon at Yale University,USA and has won the best innovation award, he was also selected for the Hack the North held at University of Waterloo, Canada. He also holds a patent on a system for exhale controlled communication and control device . Sathyaprakash is also a budding entrepreneur who plans to start a venture in the near future.

Aditya K received a B.E degree in Electronics and communication engineering from PES University in 2017. Obtained a summer fellowship from IIT-Hyderabad under Indian Academy of Sciences in 2016. Currently working on FPGA based hardware implementation of particle filters. Research interests include design of VLSI architectures for signal processing, satellite communication and cryptographic applications

Hemanth Sabbella is a B.Tech graduate from IIIT-Delhi in Electronics and Communication Engineering. He is currently working under Prof. Chetan in Circuit Designing and FPGA design for Ultrasound imaging. His research interests lie in VLSI design and embedded hardware. He worked as an Intern on designing an Electromagnetic Interference(EMI) sensor in Energy lab, IIITD and he designed 4th order Switch capacitor bandpass filter in his final year course project. He has an active mind on doing hands-on electronics hence, established Electroholics club in IIITD and also, contributed to organizing Delhi Mini Maker Faire. In addition, he has an industry experience of one year in hyper-automation. He wishes to pursue his higher studies and also, interested in building his own venture in the long term.

Pritesh Dwivedi is a B.Tech graduate from IET Lucknow in Computer Science and Engineering.He is working under Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur on projects involving computer vision and machine learning. He has worked on biomedical image analysis in a start-up prior to joining the lab. His interests include the application of machine learning across various domains such as computer vision , biomedical images (CT Scans, MRI’s) , edge computing etc.

Vignesh Ramanathan is a research assistant working on the topics of predictive modelling. He has completed his BE in electronics and communication engineering from Sir MVIT in 2015. Post bachelors he worked in the powertrain division of Robert Bosch for 3 years. He has work experience in developing embedded systems, automation systems, computer vision applications, natural language processing, big data analytics, time series analysis. He is also a ISTQB certified test engineer.

Shreyas K has completed his BE in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from SJEC, Mangalore. He is currently working under Dr Chetan Singh Thakur and Mr Haresh Dagale on system design for “Tiny Brain” an ultra-low-power FPGA based cognition machine. He has worked as a System Design Engineer with Fluxgen Engineering Technologies and was an active member of Terrorbull Robotics. He is an enthusiastic Maker who managed Make at CFAL, a makerspace in Mangalore. His interests include electronics design, product prototyping and creative design.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyaskulur/

Abhishek Moitra has completed his undergraduate in Electronics and Instrumentation from BITS Pilani, Goa and is currently working on designing FPGA based high-speed computational architectures for Quantum Computing applications. He is also enthusiastic about research in neuromorphic computing. In his undergraduate thesis at the NeuRonICS lab, he worked on designing low power hardware accelerators for Binary Neural Networks (BNNs) for edge computation. Previously he has also worked on designing hardware accelerators for real-time Signal Processing. Apart from research he is also very enthusiastic about food and music.