Lab News

2024

• Medical professionals from the U.N. Mehta Institute of Cardiology & Research Centre visited the lab in the final week of November, engaging in insightful discussions on shared interests in advancing technological integrations in the field of neurorehabilitation.
• Prof. Vashista presented the research on “Enhancing Gait and Balance with Real-Time Ankle Exoskeletons and Virtual Reality” at IIT Kanpur’s International Research Symposium on Advancements in Precision Healthcare Robotics and Assistive Technology on November 23, 2024.

• Prof. Vineet Vashista presented the work on “Synergistic Control Systems for Human-Quadcopter Collaborative Tasks” at the Workshop on Observer and Control Design for Autonomous Vehicles, hosted by SysCon, IIT Bombay on November 22, 2024. The event proved to be an exceptional learning experience.

• A team of doctors from Marengo CIMS Hospital, Ahmedabad, visited the lab to foster collaborations and discussed the feasibility of employing in-house exoskeletons to benefit medical professionals.
• Prof. Barbara Bruno, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, spent quality time with the lab members and shared valuable insights on the ongoing research work.
• Prof. Manish Chauhan, Assistant professor of medical Engineering at the University of York, delivered a lecture on ‘Robotics Engineering in Associative Medical Applications’ and visited the HCR lab to interact with the students.

• Prof. Vashista delivered a lecture at a national seminar on ‘Standardization of Exoskeleton Robots‘ organized by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
• Mr. Prajapati and Prof. Vashista presented research articles on ‘Aerial Physical Human-Robot Interaction for Payload Transportation’ and ‘External Dynamics Dependent Human Gait Adaptation Using a Cable-Driven‘  at ICRA 2024.

• A technical team from Spark Minda visited the lab to inspect the facilities and initiate collaborative work on the development of prosthetics.
• Prof. Vashista visited CMC Vellore on April 12th, 2024, to deliver a lecture at the ICORR workshop IFNRCON 2024.
• Prof. Vashista delivered a lecture on ‘Improving Leg Exoskeletons: External Dynamics Dependent Gait Adaptation’ at an international workshop on ‘Emerging Technologies and Challenges for Exoskeleton‘ organized by the DEBEL, DRDO Bengaluru on April 17th, 2024.
• The lab’s research work was exhibited at CoLab 2024, an event organized by IIT Gandhinagar to foster academic and industry collaborations.
• The in-house robotic developments were demonstrated to the Zydus and L&T teams for potential collaboration in March 2024.
• During National Science Day, we presented our research work to incite innovative spirits in the young minds of school children.
• Prof. Giacinto Barresi, Rehab Technologies Lab, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy, conducted a short course on ‘Cognitive Ergonomics and Neuroergonomics in Human-Robot Interaction’ in association with the HCR lab from February 6th to 15th, 2024. He interacted with the lab members and provided valuable insights on the ongoing projects. 
• Prof. Barresi gave a talk on “Rehabilitation technologies for people with multiple sclerosis” as part of the Cognitive and Brain Sciences Seminars on February 13th, 2024.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista was selected as a member of the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (INYAS) for five years, from February 2024 to February 2029, in recognition of his work.

2023

On the 6th of March, 2023, Professor Sunil K. Agrawal, an eminent figure in the field of Rehabilitation and Robotics, head of the ROAR Laboratory at Columbia University, visited the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar to deliver a talk on “Rehabilitation Robotics and Enhancing Everyday Human Functions”. In addition, he also interacted with the members of the HCR Laboratory, engaging in insightful discussions and sharing his expertise on the subject matter. His visit was a valuable opportunity for the research team to gain new insights and knowledge in their pursuit of cutting-edge research in the field.

HCR Lab participated in the National Science Day exhibition organized for school children at IIT Gandhinagar on 28th Feb 2023.

2022

• HCR  Lab organized a  Two days and in-person workshop on  Redundantly actuated robots and their human-centered applications on October 8-9,2022.

• Pratik Prajapati, a Ph.D. student, participated in “The IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems ” organized by the Multi-Robot Systems group at Czech Technical University, Prague, from August 1-5, 2022, Prague, Czech Republic. 

• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered a lecture on Soft Wearable Robotics for Gait Rehabilitation, Workshop on Medical Robotics, IIT Madras, India on Aug 12, 2022.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Soft Wearable Robotics for Rehabilitation, 33rd National Rehabilitation Days – Modern Technologies in Rehabilitation, University Rehabilitation Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia on Apr 7, 2022.

2021

• Planar cable-driven experimental testbed, developed by  N S S Sanjeevi,  presented in the article “Stiffness modulation of a cable-driven leg exoskeleton for effective human-robot interaction,  Robotica, 1-21. ” has been featured as the cover page of the Journal Vol39 – Issue 12. 

• Siddharth Bhardwaj, post-doctoral fellow at HCR Lab, received DST CSRI fellowship for the proposal on the “Role of Multimodal Cueing for improving Postural Balance and Control”.

• Yogesh Singh, PhD Scholar at HCR Lab, has been awarded the SITARE GYTI Appreciation Award, 2021, for the project  “Wearable Interactive Parkinsons disease Assistive Device – WIPAD ” .

• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Robotics and Industrial Automation – A focus on Human-Robot Interaction. Webinar on Increased Industrial Automation in India with Enhanced use of Industrial Robots, EEPC, India, on Dec 23, 2021.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Wearable Robotics – A focus on Gait Biomechanics and Analysis. SERB Karyashala: Instrumentation and Signal Processing in Biomedical Imaging and Rehabilitation, IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat , on Oct 25, 2021.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Human-Robot Collaboration – A focus on System Design and Control. ATAL FDP on Robotics, IIT Patna, Bihar, on Sep 22, 2021.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Wearable Robotics – A focus on Gait Rehabilitation. FDP on Wearable Devices, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, on July 9, 2021.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Wearable Robotics.  ATAL FDP on Robotics at RGM College of Engineering and Technology, Andhra Pradesh on Jan 9, 2021.

2020

• Yogesh Singh, a PhD scholar in HCR Lab, secured the Prime Minister Research Fellowship.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Human-Robot Collaboration: A focus on System Design and Control, Online Lecture, Innovation in Robotics & Automation and its Application, Gandhinagar Institute of Technology (GIT) on December 5, 2020.
• Prof. Vineet Vashista delivered an online lecture on Human-Robot Collaboration: A focus of System Design and Control, Webinar on Mechanical Engineering Solutions to Biomedical Problems at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad on September 26, 2020.
• The 2nd webinar of The Robotics Society on “Healthcare Robotics” was held on 13th August at 4.00 PM.

• A paper on dual-motor-task analysis was accepted in the Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (TNSRE) – 2020.
• HCR Lab presented a paper in the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) held virtually, 31 May – 31 August 2020.
• A paper on gait intervention using WeARS was accepted in Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 2020.
• HCR Lab organised a workshop on Physical and Cognitive Health of Elderly Using Wearables, 16-18 March. (Due to the pandemic, the workshop has been postponed).

2019

• HCR Lab members participated in The 28th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 14-17 October 2019, New Delhi. We presented three papers. Two of our papers have been selected for awards.

• Convocation 2019: HCR Lab celebrates graduation of MSc students Azba Shaikh, Joel Joseph, and Prankur Saxena, and MTech students Pratik Prajapati, and Srikesh Iyer. HCR Lab wishes them very best in their future endeavors!

• Nakka Suryasatyasanjeevi, Ph.D. student at the HCR Lab, is spending two months (Jun-July, 2019) at the ReNeu Robotics Lab, The University of Texas at Austin, USA as part of SPARC project, India collaboration between the ReNeu Lab and HCR Lab. He is working on a project to study stiffness optimzation of a 2 DOFs system at the ReNeu Lab headed by Prof. Ashish Deshpande.

• Yogesh Singh, Ph.D. student at the HCR Lab, is spending two months (Jun-July, 2019) at the ROAR Lab, Columbia University, USA as part of SPARC project, India collaboration between the ROAR Lab and HCR Lab. He is working on a project to aid gait pattern assessment of healthy elderly individuals and geriatric patients at the ROAR Lab headed by Prof. Sunil K Agrawal.

• Dr. Vineet Vashista participated and gave a lecture on Soft Exoskeleton: Need, Challenges, and Technology road map in the workshop on Powered Exoskeleton at DIPAS, Delhi, India, April 10, 2019.
• Summer Workshop in Biomechanics and Neuroscience of Human Motion on 4 – 6 JUNE, 2019 at IIT GANDHINAGAR; http://events.iitgn.ac.in/2019/Neuromechanics/index.php

• Dr. Vineet Vashista participated and gave an expert lecture at the INDO-FRENCH WORKSHOP ON ROBOTICS FOR REHABILITATION, Robo-Rehab 2019, 26-28 February 2019 at CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh, India.
• HCR Lab got two SPARC projects from Government of India to collaborate with Columbia University, New York, USA and University of Texas at Austin, USA, 2019-2021.
• Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of Axilor Ventures and former co-chairman of Infosys, and Mr. Vijay Ivaturi, ex-CTO of Wipro, visited the HCR Lab on 14 February 2019 .

• Mr. Subhash Ghai, director, producer and screenwriter and founder of Whistling Wood along with Mr. Chaitanya, Business Head, visited the HCR Lab on 08 February 2019 .

2018

• N S S Sanjeevi delivered a research talk in the Workshop on Human-Centered Robotics: Prosthesis at University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, December 10, 2018.
• Nevilkumar Panchal presented a paper in the 2018 IEEE RAS & EMBS International Conference in Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), Enschede, The Netherlands, August 26-29, 2018.
• Fun @ HCR Lab during Summer 2018.