Domains

At IIITB, we follow the notion of research labs and centers which is an abstraction of a particular theme/area. A research lab encompasses people, projects, physical facilities, and activities. A research center or a center of excellence is an abstraction either in terms of the broader set of research themes being followed or in terms of hierarchy of research activities. Please click on the respective research domain above to get more details about its focus of research, faculty members involved, and the active labs and centers.

Research Profile of IIITB
Complete listing of areas, for which there is ongoing active research at IIITB, as categorized in the seven research domains, is given here.

1. Computer Science
2. Data Sciences
3. VLSI Systems
4. Information Technology & Society
5. Mathematics & Basic Sciences
6. Networking Communications & Signal Processing
7. Software Engineering

1. COMPUTER SCIENCE

1. Computer science at IIIT Bangalore covers the theoretical aspects of computation (formal methods, algorithms, and software), as well as the uses of computing in application domains such as robotics, cognitive science, software engineering, intelligent transportation systems, and sustainability.  Computer science courses are the backbone of the integrated as well as the regular M.Tech programs here, and several courses map directly to placements and research on advanced topics.  Our past students have won laurels in competitive programming contests (a/k/a hackathons), and have gone on to careers or higher studies in very good companies and universities worldwide.
2.  
3. Faculty Members
4. Pradeesha Ashok
   Ashish Choudhury
   Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti
   Meenakshi D'Souza
   V.N. Muralidhara
   Sachit Rao
   Shrisha Rao
   Vivek Srinivas

2. DATA SCIENCES

The Data Sciences research domain focuses on all aspects of data management, processing, modeling, and information retrieval. The current areas of interest include: Database Design, Information Retrieval, Network Analysis, Mining Latent Semantics, Data Mining and Data Warehousing, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Linked Data and Semantic Web, NoSQL Databases, Stream Data Management, Multimedia Management using Control Theory, Analytics, Graphics & Visualization, and GPU Computing, Applied Machine Learning, Computational Social Sciences, Computational Topology.

Faculty Members

• Prof. Amit Chattopadhyay
• Prof. Chandrashekar Ramanathan
• Prof. Dinesh Babu Jayagopi
• Prof. Jaya Sreevalsan Nair
• Prof. Sachit Rao
• Prof. Srinath Srinivasa
• Prof. G. Srinivasaraghavan
• Prof. T. K. Srikanth
   

3. VLSI Systems

VLSI Systems is referred to VLSI design and embedded systems in IIITB. The VLSI systems domain encompasses a broad range of topics covering several aspects of both, digital and analog hardware systems. The team focuses on novel digital design implementations using ASIC flow, or on FPGA's. The domain also covers computer architecture, testing and verification of systems,  realization of real time embedded systems where both the hardware and the software components are treated agnostically based on end system requirements; embedded implementation of feedback control using variegated sensors.  Embedded system design using microcontrollers and FPGA for emerging biomedical applications are also implemented.

Topics of active research include: 

• Model Based Hardware-Software Co-Synthesis of Reconfigurable Embedded Systems
• Low power design, Approximate Computing, Hardware accelerators for AI applications, Edge computing design for biomedical applications
• Analog-and-Mixed Signal circuit design
• RF Circuit Design
• Computer architecture, compressed cache design and fault tolerant systems
• Implementation issues for feedback control
• Deterministic embedded systems implementation for applications in motion control
• Surgical and Assistive Robotic devices 
   

Faculty Members

• Prof. Madhav Rao
• Prof. Nanditha Rao
• Prof. Sachit Rao
• Prof. Subajit Sen
• Prof. Subir K. Roy

Analog and Mixed Signal Design lab, Center for Electronics and Embedded Systems, VLSI Design lab, and Surgical and Assistive Robotics lab are part of VLSI System domain at IIITB.

4. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY

 The Information Technology and Society (ITS) research domain at IIITB is broadly concerned with the social role of information and communications technologies (ICTs. Faculty members in ITS have wide ranging interests in domains as diverse as telecom policy, technology innovation, information studies, sociology of technologies, human computer interaction (HCI),and accessibility and disability studies. Their disciplinary affiliations with expertise in the social sciences, include economics, economic geography, sociology, communication studies, development, management, governance and public administration. Current areas of research interests include: ICT and Development (ICTD), ICT industry and economic development, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), ICT and privacy policies and regulation, radio spectrum regulation, telecom, technology design, digital governance, information systems, accessibility and inclusion, public policy, digital infrastructures and governance, sociology of work and automation, technology and ethics, globalization, technological change and innovation, , technology access and governance, Urbanism, urbanisation and "smart" cities, politics of privacy, automated decision-making and algorithmic biases. 

The centres and programs associated with ITS include: 

1.  Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP)

Faculty Members

Amit Prakash

Balaji Parthasarathy

Bidisha Chaudhuri

Janaki Srinivasan

Preeti Mudliar

V. Sridhar

Faculty Members

• Prof. Amit Prakash
• Prof. Balaji Parthasarathy
• Prof. Bidisha Chaudhari
• Prof. Janaki Srinivasan
• Prof. Preeti Mudliar
• Prof. S. Rajagopalan
• Prof. V. Sridhar
   

5. MATHEMATICS & BASIC SCIENCES

The research at IIITB in Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics are given here. In CHEMISTRY, the research at IIITB primarily is in the area of electronic structure calculations. Particularly, weak interactions (pi-pi, CH-pi etc.) present in various systems (small model systems, protein-ligand systems, DNA bases, nanotubes etc.) are investigated using quantum chemical methods (HF, MP2, CCSD(T) & DFT). Additionally, the work entails unravelling the role of such weak interactions in the field of drug-design, polymers, nano-devices and in new materials. Some of the recent research works show that pi-pi and CH-pi interactions are invariably present in the crystal structures of bio-molecules and play important role in their structure as well as functions.

Faculty Members

• Prof. Brijesh Kumar Mishra.

Research in MATHEMATICS is principally in the area of Number Theory; in particular, Algebraic Number Theory, Galois Representations, Modular Forms, Iwasawa Theory. Diophantine Equations, Galois Module structure and Elliptic curves. Research is also conducted in the fields of Algebraic Complexity Theory and Cryptography. The following two problems are representative of the mathematics research in IIITB: Let E be an elliptic curve over number field K. For every prime P where E has good reduction at P, we get one imaginary quadratic field associated to E. We are trying to see if we can get all imaginary quadratic fields by this procedure? 

Faculty Members

• Prof. Manisha Kulkarni.

In PHYSICS, there are two sub-domains of research focus at IIITB: (a) One sub-domain of research focus is on soft condensed matter physics, complex systems & dynamical systems theory, instabilities & synchronization in nonlinear systems (both physical and biological), and macromolecular systems. Topics include bubble dynamics & cavitation, vesicular nanotubulation, polyelectrolytic solutions, combustion, phase transitions in computationally hard problems, models of sensory systems, precipitation phenomena, etc.; (b) The other sub-domain of physics research is in computational fluid mechanics, especially simulations & modeling of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic turbulent flows, reduced resistive MHD simulations, low resolution simulations of 3D-HD and MHD turbulent flows including rotation & helical forcing and 3Danelastic HD and MHD code.

Faculty Members

• Prof. Balakrishnan Ashok
• Prof. Shiva Kumar Malapaka
   

6. NETWORKING, COMMUNICATION & SIGNAL PROCESSING

The Networking, Communication and Signal Processing research domain focuses on all aspects of networking, communications, and signal processing. The current topics of interest are: Computer networks, Network security, Wireless communication, Signal processing, Medical signal processing, Computer vision, Control of unmanned systems using image processing and computer vision.

Faculty Members

• Prof. Debabrata Das
• Prof. Dinesh Babu Jayagopi
• Prof. Jyotsna Bapat
• Prof. Neelam Sinha
• Prof. Sachit Rao
• Prof. Tricha Anjali

7. SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Software engineering (SE) brings together interesting avenues of both fundamental and applied research contributing to the broad spectrum of activities involved in the creation of large, complex, industrial strength software systems having high quality, dependability and within reasonable resources. The current research covers a wide variety of areas ranging from empirical to formal aspects of SE. At IIITB, the research in SE covers both upstream (requirement and design) and downstream (testing and maintenance) SDLC activities cutting across a variety of application domains (enterprise, embedded etc). Here is a list of some of the broad areas in which our faculty members are working: Pattern oriented software engineering, software architecture, distributed software engineering, model driven software engineering (MDSE), software testing, verification and validation (V&V) of web-services and V&V of embedded software (cyber-physical systems and adaptive systems) among others.

Faculty Members

• Prof. Chandrashekar Ramanathan
• Prof. K. V. Dinesha
• Prof. L. T. Jayprakash
• Prof. Meenakshi D'Souza
• Prof. Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti