With autonomous vehicles and robot-executed surgeries becoming commonplace around the world, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has initiated a Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) programme. Still at a nascent stage, it has been conceived as a ₹3,000-crore exercise that would, at first, take root in some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), according to officials familiar with the project.
An initial budget of ₹100 crore has been earmarked for the project in the current financial year.
Interdisciplinary field
tCPS is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the deployment of computer-based systems that do things in the physical world, such as, for instance, the self-driven cars produced by Google and Tesla.
However, even smart grids (where electricity is optimally distributed on the basis of calculations in real time by micro-processors) as well as autonomous unmanned vehicles and aircraft navigation systems qualify as ‘cyber physical systems.’
K.R. Murali Mohan, who heads the CPS programme at the DST, told The Hindu that the thrust of the initiative would be to “break silos” in academia and encourage greater synergy between the university scientists and industry.
“Centres of excellence would be developed at the IITs and universities. There would be dedicated courses [on the subject],” he added.
Important area: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to cyber physical systems earlier this year at the Indian Science Congress in Tirupati. Pointing out that it was an “important area that needed to be addressed,” he had noted that it had the “potential to pose unprecedented challenges and stresses to our demographic dividend.”
By ensuring that the future workforce is skilled in “robotics, artificial intelligence, digital manufacturing, big data analysis, deep learning, quantum communication and Internet-of-Things,” it could be turned into a huge opportunity, he had said.
Though India is only now developing a programme on CPS, the National Science Foundation of the United States had identified it as a key area of inter-disciplinary research back in 2003.
According to Sandeep Kumar Shukla, computer science professor at IIT-Kanpur, the success of such a programme would require consortia of researchers in the field to work together. “IIT Mumbai, for instance, is known for research in power systems, and IIT-Kanpur, for computer science. You need certain groups [with expertise] to come together,” he told The Hindu .
