45 Post-doctoral research, success and failures

Even though I could complete my research at I.I.T. Delhi and get my PhD degree, after returning to REC Calicut the major problem was how to continue my research. The work done in I.I.T Delhi was on data processing in oil exploration and was supported by ONGC. The Institute of Petroleum Exploration(IPE), ONGC had accepted the work done by us and incorporated it in the regular  data processing program of seismic data at IPE.  However, it was not possible to continue the same work in REC as there was no exploration data processing centre in the South. Even today, I think the only such centre is in Dehra Dun. The possibility, then was to   apply the methods we have developed to other areas, if possible. My professor  A K Mahalanabis  had left on an assignment in USA  immediately after  our submission of the PhD thesis. He had promised me that he will try to get similar research project proposed and sanctioned  in his university and if everything works out as expected, he will try to invite  me and Dr.S.Prasad  for  post-doctoral work in the university. I also tried for getting a post-doc at some other universities in USA directly, but nothing worked out in my favour. Moreover, as I had signed a bond to serve the institution for a minimum period of three years after re-joining, there was no possibility of  going away before  the  bond period. But I still continued my efforts in spite of repeated failures. 

So, the only way to continue my research in REC  was to do something here itself. At that time, there were very few research students in REC Calicut. Most of the students after M.Tech used to get very good placement and very few opted for research even in I.I.T.s. Only those who are working in academic institutions were interested in doing research. In addition, there was only very  few research  fellowships in our college for providing  financial assistance, just one fellowship each in Civil, Electrical and Mechanical departments. Even for this, there were very few applicants.  It was thus difficult to get research students. My subject of specialization was Control Systems which was highly mathematical and very few students opted to do research in this area.

The only possibility was to choose good M Tech students   from the stream Instrumentation and Control Systems which was close to my specialization. Therefore, I started working with some good M.Tech students  for  their thesis work. Fortunately, a few students came forward to do their thesis with me. Of course, there was no possibility of continuing seismic data processing. So, my students and me were on the look out for areas of applications of Control Theory to  other areas. 

One of the earliest students  to join me  was  Sri.E.Krishnakumar who   came forward  to modelling of water pollution data. Gwalior Rayons,  Mavoor  was in the News at that time creating  lot of pollution of water in the Chaliyar river and he collected the data pertaining to the  water  pollution at the  effluent  exit points from Gwaliyar Rayons Mavoor. We used our algorithm to predict the pollution level in the river  due to the effluents being let into it. Basically  it was a modelling  problem for  prediction. Krishnakumar did a reasonably good work. Subsequently, he got a very good placement in I.S.R.O Bangalore  and continued  there till he took voluntary retirement a few years back

Similarly, another thesis work was on modelling of goods movement in New Mangalore Port Trust, (NMPT), Panambur. The time taken   by a  ship  on reaching the  outer port and returning after unloading the cargo and loading new cargo at the port is called turn-around-time  of ships. This is very crucial as even reduction of a few hours could result in considerable saving of money to be paid to the port authorities. One of my students Sri.Rajanbabu collected the data from the port with help from my brother in law who was working a Asst. Traffic Manager in NMPT. We used linear programming methods to optimize the turn-around-time. This was also a novel work in itself.  Rajanbabu has subsequently joined N.S.S.College of Engineering Palakkad and has recently retired as Professor & Head  of the department from NSSCE. He has also helped M.E.S.College of Engg Kuttippuram after his retirement  for one or wo years.

From my early child hood, I had some interest in medical field and as I joined  engineering  profession, this was  not possible. An area of collaboration between engineers and doctors were available in Biomedical Signal Processing. When one student Sri. Santhosh Mathew came up with an idea of modelling of Electrical Encephalographic (EEG) signal , I gladly accepted. The EEG signals  which are essentially  electrical waves collected from the  brain using special electrodes on the scalp can be used to analyse brain related diseases such as epilepsy and to develop Brain Computer Interfaces(BCI). BCI  has been effectively used to help patients who have communication problems.  We tried to collect EEG data from some foreign universities and a professor in I.I.T.Madras and analyse how to detect  eplileptic spikes in  EEG signals. He was highly motivated in his work. Santhosh on completion of M.Tech  initially joined I.S.R.O .Bangalore and later  moved to California for a better  job along with his family

From many of these M.Tech theses, we  could publish  at least one or two  papers and present it in several  national conferences. This way, I could somehow show that I am doing research but it was  not really satisfying. This is because M Tech thesis is normally done over a short duration of one semester or slightly more and the quantum of work may not be good enough for a good publication in an international journal. To do significant work, there should be research students doing PhD. My professor  used to say  one  can think of publishing a  journal paper if he has worked on a topic for at least for an year.  In our colleges, the class work and administrative work we have to do will be quite heavy and doing research by ourselves may not be possible. If we get reasonably good research students, we can tell them what to do.

Within two years after getting my PhD degree I was approved as research guide of Calicut University However, I could get a research scholar   to work with me only after several years. The first student was a member of faculty from Govt Engineering College Thrissur, Sri. E Chandrasekharan  and second   our own colleague Smt.Padmakumari. For both, I was the co-guide along with  R Sreeramkumar and Dr.S.Thiruvengadam.  As both of them were working  full time  in their institutions, PhD work was being done on a part time basis and so they took in inordinately long time, 5-6 years for the first and almost 8 years for the second. Anyway, I was happy that I could help them in getting their PhD degree from Calicut University at the end. Unfortunately, both of them are not  alive now. Dr. Chandrasekharan had a heart attack and Dr.Padmakumari’s life ended in tragic circumstances  due to severe  burns suffered during the Pongala festival in Attukaal temple in Thiruvananthapuram.

Subsequently, one former student of REC, Smt. Sudha  Balagopal  joined as a part time research student under Dr.Ashok and myself and completed her degree. She is now the Principal in Vidya College of Science & Technology Thrissur. Later Sri.A.P Sudheer  from  Mechanical department  did his PhD in Robotics with me as co-guide  and got his degree from N.I.T Calicut. The last student Smt. Shalu George (co-guide  Dr.K.S.Sivanandan) also  got her degree in the latest convocation. Even though she started  as a full time student,  she could not complete her work during the three years of full time research. She  took few more years to complete the work. It was rather unfortunate that even in the NITC system, I could not get a full time student for PhD for reasons not known to me. Anyway, I am happy that with these  6 PhD students and almost 20+ M Tech students, I could publish more than 50 research papers in  journals and conferences in India and abroad. With financial support from REC and UGC, I could travel to Honolulu, Hawaii to present a paper  in 1998 and another  paper in Singapore in 2001. That is in a way the sum total of my research work  in REC/NITC.