DST Project
 

Second Progress Report

Summary of Progress :

We have completed one and half year by the end of May 2000.

Research Accomplishments :

Under this project the following five classes of problems have been integrated with the sole aim of linking them to industrial applications. The summaryof these classes of problems is given as under. The details canbe seen in the attached Technical Reports (IMG-TR) / Research Reports (IMG-RR) referred to at the respective places.

(i) Genetic Algorithms (GA's) and Economic Dispatch Problem.

A survey on Genetic Algorithms has been completed. This includes some hybrid algorithms alongwith Simulated Annealing. The CAI Lab of the Industrial Mathematics Group now has a good glossary of Algorithms related to Gas. These algorithms have been subsequently used for economic dispatch problems posed as Travelling Salesman Problem and Bus Scheduling Problem. A comparative study (on Bus Scheduling) between GAs and Classical Techniques has also been undertaken. (IMG-TR-1999-2, IMG-TR-2000-1, M.Sc. Project 1999-05).

(ii) Dynamic Simulation by Differential Algebraic Equations (DAE's)

The following developmental works have been undertaken.
Research Outcome :
The mathematical model developed in (IMG-RR-1999-1, IMG-RR-1999-3) for an industrial slurry high density polyethylene reactor gives rise to a class of discontinuous dynamical systems consisting of DAE's. This problem which is worked out in collaboration with NOCIL results in
(iii) On-line Optimization: Algorithms and Implementations
On-Line Optimization involves networking of various modules. Each module requires a thorough study of techniques used therein - Data Reconciliation, Parameter Estimation and Error Detection.
A theoretical study of these modules has been completed. Subsequently, two robust algorithms - Generalized Reduced Gradient and SequentialQuadratic Programming - have been tested on standard examples. They nowform part of Resources generated under the Project. (Refer IMG-TR-2000-2, IMG-TR-2000-3, IMG-TR-2000-5).

(iv) Market Assessment and Forecasting Models

The developmental work undertaken by the group for three different industries Pfizer Ltd., Associated Cement Company Pvt. Ltd. (Thane), A.F. Fergusson & Co., Mumbai resulted in
For more details, see IMG-TR-2000-6 and M.Sc. Project Reports No. 1999-02, 2000-01, 2000-02, 2000-03.
 
(v) Computer Aided Geometric Design (CAGD) (Convexity Issues in Surface Designing).
One of the main objectives of the DST sponsored project is to provide user friendly software package on convex surfaces to the designer. The software module developed by our group provides the Graphical User Interface(GUI) to determine whether surface is convex. Graphical User Interface displays the surface along with its Gaussian Curvature plot. If the Gaussian Curvature plot goes below the X-Y plane along Z-axis, then the designer can safely conclude that the surface is non-convex. The GUI uses freely available public domain software package called `Geomview' to display the surfaces. Then if the user wants, the module will search for the convex surface around the given surface.The search algorithm used in the module is heuristic in nature.
The group has also developed a software which can compute the surface interpolating a given set of points, which makes designers job to provide the input for the prospective surface extremely easy.
The Software has been written in JAVA programming language. It provides applets to the designer to give the control points of the surface and has control over Geomview camera.The designer is also provided with the facility to indicate the control points by just clicking on the Geomview camera. For more details, see IMG-TR-1999-4.

IIT(IMG) - Industry Meet:

(i) IIT-Industry Meet between NRB & IMG at IIT Bombay on November 20, 1999.

After a few rounds of discussion with NRB ( NRB Bearing ), the IMG organized a meeting on 20th November 1999 at IIT Bombay to discuss the mathematical aspects of the industrial problems pertaining to NRB. A total number of 31 participants out of which seven senior executives from NRB attended the meeting.
The participants from NRB presented some typical problems faced by their industry. After a due deliberation, eight possible projects (see the report for details) were identified. However, on priority basis the following three projects are taken up by IMG.
For more details, see Industrial Meet Report no. IMG-IM-01.
 
Study Group Meetings :

(i) Study Group Meeting held on 19th February, 2000, in the MS University Baroda, Vadodara.

The main theme of the meeting was Eco-Modeling. A total number of 30 (out of which there were 9 senior scientists and executives from industry) participants drawn from IIT Bombay, MS University, Industry and R & D Organizations in and around Baroda attended the meeting.
After a day long presentation and deliberation, the following two projects were proposed:
For more details, see the Study Group Report No. IMG-SR-01.
Our resource persons in MS Univ. Baroda are working on these two issues and we hope to provide some preliminary results in future.
 
(ii) Study Group Meeting held on 11th March, 2000 at IIT Bombay
The general theme was to understand the types of problems faced by TRDDC, ABB Ltd., Crompton and Greaves Ltd., ADE, TIL etc. A total number of 15 participants from IIT Bombay, MS University Baroda and Industries attended the meeting. Out of 15, there were 7 senior scientists from industries represented the meeting.
The problems presented by the participating industry and R&D organizations were technical in nature. We expect that some of these problems will lead to research and developmental projects at least of the level of M.Sc as well M. Tech. For a more detailed report, see, the Study Group Report No. IMG-SR-02.

(iii) Industrial Interactions through Individual Contacts

Apart from these group meetings mentioned above, from time to time, the members of the IMG are interacting with senior executives of various industries, namely; Hindustan Lever Ltd., Cytel Software (India) pvt. Ltd. (Pune), Associated Cement Companies Ltd. (Thane), Pfizer Ltd., A. F. Fergusson & Co. (Mumbai), Hindustan Motors, Godrej Soap.
Some of the major developmental works already completed or in progress are as follows:
The group had some discussions with Hindustan Lever Ltd. to explore the possibility of doing a project on crystallization for them. Hindustan Lever is using crystallization as a way of purifying speciality chemicals. The main focus of this proposed project is to obtain good purity in shorter time. Substantial ground work has been done in this direction (see IMG-TR-2000-7).
The IMG had Some preliminary discussions with Foxboro in Chennai to explore the possibilities of working on problems of quality control in sugar industry. The objective in this case is to produce the desired crystal size distribution without material loss and in a short time.

Workshops and Contunuing Education Program :

(i) Workshop on Mathematical / Statistical Software Packages for Data Analysis, Modeling And Simulation, April 22-24,1999 in the IMG Lab at IIT Bombay.

A total number of 25 from various industries and R & D Organizations : (NRB, TRDDC, ABB Ltd, Crompton Greaves, ADE, CDAC, TIL, CICFRI, GES, Kirloskar Consultancy, GUIDE, WWFI, ORG-MARG, MSU Baroda) registered for the workshop. The registration was on payment basis.
 
Objectives: To train the participants in the following aspects:
  1. Demonstration of the power of some of the modern Mathematical/Statistical Software Packages like MATHEMATICA, MATLAB, OPTIMIZE, SAS etc.
  2. Exposition to mathematical and statistical techniques used in industrial problems.
  3. Online computing experience through tutorial sessions.
The workshop was conducted under Computer Aided Instructional (CAI ) environment using Industrial Case Studies and Algorithms.
For details, see the Proceeding of the Workshops :IMG-PW-02.

(ii) Professional Development Workshop in Engineering Optimization, February 29th - March 3rd, 2000

This workshop has been exclusively designed to cater the need of Optimization Techniques in Industry. A novel feature of this workshop was real life problem solving session. The main features were: Constrained and Unconstrained optimization, Linear and Nonlinear Programming, Evolutionary Algorithms (Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing). Most of the techniques were motivated through case studies. The tutorial sessions were supplemented with hands-on experience on the in-house developed educational software ``OPTIMIZE''.
A total number of 13 participants from Industry were trained and this was done on payment basis.
For details, see, the Proceedings of the Workshop -IMG-PW-03.

(iii) In-House Workshop on Industrial Statistics held in the premises of Sterlite Copper company Ltd, July 22--23, 2000

A two days inhouse workshop was organized in the premises of Sterlite Copper company Ltd. during July 22--23, 2000. About 23 employees participated in the programme. The main focus was on the Sampling and Statistical Quality Control. Starting with basics, a large number of case studies were presented in the workshop.

(iv) Proposal for In-House Course on ``Engineering Optimization'' to be conducted in Hindustan Motors Ltd.

On a specific request from the General Manager-QA & TQM, Hindustan Motors Ltd. a proposal on the above In-House Course has been submitted.
The prime objective of the proposal is to share with participants the power of state-of-art Optimization Techniques that are available in the form of Software packages. It is also intended to describe to the participants the systematic approach of optimization which includes the problem definition, its mathematical formulation, selection of a suitable method (algorithm) and a detail analysis of the solution obtained.

ConferenceONFERENCE / WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION PERTAINING TO THE PROJECT

Sanjeev Sabnis

Participated the Workshop on Modeling Real Systems : a Hands-On First Encounter with Industrial Mathematics", during 27th September-22nd October, 1999 held in ICTP, Trieste, Italy. During his stay there, Dr. Sabnis also participated in the following two projects:
A group of three faculty members ( Amiya Kumar Pani, Sanjiv Sabnis, Alladi Subramanyam and one JRF (Mr. Vishwas Jadav ) from Industrial Mathematics Group attended a series of Lectures on `Stochastic Process and Option Pricing', given by Professor Rajiv Karandikar (ISI, Delhi) in the IGIDR, Goregaon during Nov. 23- Nov. 26,1999.
 
Ashish Misra (SRF, DST Project)
Attended three days short term course on "Optimizing Engineering Design Using Evolutionary Algorithms", held in I.I.T. Kanpur ( Organized by Prof. K. Deb) during 24th Nov. to 26th Nov. 1999.
 
Kannan M. Moudgalya
One hour Invited talk on `` Dynamical model of an industrial slurry high density polyethylene reactor'' in the Workshop on Simulation and Computing for Industrial Applications under Technology Appreciation Programme in IIT Madras in February'2000.
 
Amiya K Pani
One hour Invited Bama Charan as Memorial Lecture on ``Industrial Mathematics: Key to Key Technologies and Its Impact on Mathematical Research and Education in Mathematics'', National Conference on ``Recent Trends in Mathematics & Computing'' at ``27th Annual Conference of Orissa Mathematical Society'', held in Bhubaneshwar, during 11th-12th March 2000.
 
Kannan M. Moudgalya
Attended, as a representative from IMG, n Industrial Mathematics Workshop organized by Institut Teknologi Bandung in collaboration with University of Twente, Netherlands  in Bandung, Indonesia, July 10-14, 2000. Dr. Kannan worked on the problem of "The effects of increasing the frequency and velocity on the operation and structure of trains" for the company PT Kereta Api. The objective of this work was to increase the throughput of trains between Jakarta and Bandung. A smaller version of this case study was posed in the form of a linear programming problem.
 
Mohan C Joshi
One hour invited talk on " Doing Industrial Mathematics via Optimization, DAE,  CAGD and Market Forecasting'', in the Third World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts held in Catania (Italy) during 19th - 26th July, 2000.
 
Amiya K Pani
One hour Invited talk on `` Particle Size Distribution in Emulsion Polymerization: Some Computational Issues'', in the session `Applied Analysis and Industrial Problems' of the third World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts held in Catania (Italy) during 19th - 26th July, 2000.
 
Sachin B. Patkar
Presented a talk on ``Applications of Submodular Functions to Algorithms in VLSI CAD'', in the 17th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming-ISMP2000, held in Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (USA) during August 7-11, 2000}
 
Resource Generated :

(i) Computer Aided Instructional (CAI) Environments.

A Computer Aided Instructional (CAI) Lab which is equipped with LCD projector, PCs, server, ftp server is excusively devoted to Industrial problem solving activities including the training programmes for the industry personnels. These PCs are networked to the main backbone of the Institute. From time to time this lab is used for conducting Workshops, Seminars, Study Group Meetings and also computer intensive courses in our department. Sometimes we organise the educational awareness programmes on MATHEMATICA and the public domain packages on ODE solver called ` LSODE'.  The CAI Lab consists of the following resources:
(ii) FTP Mirror Site
We have built a local FTP mirror site for public domain mathematical softwares called NETLIB and set up procedure for its regular updating. We have also designed the web server for easy accessibility of the packages and establish routines for downloading and installing the packages. For more detail, see IMG-TR-1999-1.
(iii) Techniques / Software Developed In-House
(iv) Educational Technology
Resource Persons

We have a network of resource persons for popularizing industrial mathematics and arranging locally Study Group Meetings at MS University, Baroda, IISc, Bangalore, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur etc.

One of our resource persons Professor P. R. Parthsarathy from IIT Madras conducted a workshop on Simulation and Computing for Industrial Applications under Technology Appreciation Programme ,held in IIT Chennai Feb'2000. Our representative Professor Kannan Moudgalya attended the meeting and presented a talk.

New Initiatives

R & D Initiatives with Industry

As a byproduct of this project, the group is also actively engaged in the following Research and Development programmes with Indian Industries.
Collaborative Research with Academic Institutes
Innovations : NIL.

Application Potential:

Long Term

Immediate
Any  Other

R & D Work which remains to be done under the project

Project Progress Indicators
Patents filed/to be filed: Nil.
       

      Back to top