When the world is rapidly moving towards research in applied areas, IIT Guwahati researchers have developed methods to solve the problems in computer systems domain.

Team of IIT Guwahati researchers

IIT Guwahati researchers are being led by Professor Hemangee K. Kapoor of Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at IIT Guwahati.

The findings of the research by IIT Guwahati researchers are published in reputed peer-reviewed journals like IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions in VLSI, IEEE TCAD, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, ACM TODAES, ACM JETC, to name a few.

The work

Professor Hemangee who led the team of IIT Guwahati researchers said the application data access patterns are not uniformly distributed and hence leads to several orders of writes to certain memory locations compared to others.
Such heavily written locations become prone to wear-out and thus prevents the use of complete memory device without error corrections, said Professor Hemangee who led the team of IIT Guwahati researchers.

To handle this non-uniformity, IIT Guwahati researchers developed methods to evenly distribute the accesses across the overall memory capacity to reduce the wear-out pressure on heavily written locations and also worked in the area which avoids writing redundant values thus prolonging the wear-out.

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Professor Hemangee K. Kapoor slow and frequent writes can be re-directed to temporary SRAM partitions sparing the NVM from getting written with such frequent accesses. Such structures are called hybrid memories.

‘IIT Guwahati researchers team is also working on extending them to off-chip main memory.’

The future challenges are to handle lifetime enhancement in presence of encryption methods used to secure the Non-volatile memory and to handle temperature and process technology driven disturbance errors introduced when the cells are read or written, said Professor Hemangee who led the team of IIT Guwahati researchers.

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The current and future contributions of IIT Guwahati researchers will help mitigate the drawbacks of promising emerging memories and ease their adaptability.

Once some drawbacks are easily removed, scientists can find newer avenues for using such technologies without worrying about its limitations, say IIT Guwahati researchers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are used as tools to solve several real-time problems.

However, they involve enormous computations on huge datasets. Building close to memory accelerators to process the data are efficient in performance as well as energy, say IIT Guwahati researchers.

The research team is also working on building customized parallel architecture designs to give better FLOPS, say IIT Guwahati researchers.

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Data creation is also fueled by 5G networks, image processing and real-time voice processing.

All these big-data applications need real-time analysis at run-time and with immediate responses. Better storage and close to memory processing is the need of the hour, say IIT Guwahati researchers.

Non-volatile memory are advised to be used in Internet of things (IoT) and edge devices.

The longevity of non-volatile memory in such devices is crucial for their service guarantees and durability.

Effective lifetime improvement methods will help improving the state-of-the art in this field which is still in its nascent stage.

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Solutions for better management of NVMs will give them wider acceptance in critical applications including healthcare and autonomous vehicles, say IIT Guwahati researchers.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati established in 1994 has completed 25 years of glorious existence in 2019.

At present, the Institute has eleven departments, five inter-disciplinary academic centres and four schools covering all the major engineering, science and humanities disciplines, offering BTech, BDes, MA, MDes, MTech, MSc and PhD programmes.

The institute offers a residential campus to 412 faculty members and more than 6,000 students at present. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfil the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its inception in 1994.

The picturesque campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, around 20 kms from the heart of the Guwahati city.

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Designed to monitor the freshness of seafood in real-time by responding to pH changes, the film offers a practical solution for improving food safety and reducing waste.

This film detects the release of volatile amines, compounds typically associated with spoilage, and indicates food quality through visible color changes, say sources from NIT Rourkela.

These natural components make the film biodegradable, safe, and responsive, aligning with sustainability goals and offering a non-invasive way to assess seafood freshness.

Findings

The findings of this research have been published in the journal Food Packaging and Shelf Life in a paper co-authored by Prof. Preetam Sarkar (as the lead corresponding author), along with his research scholars, Mr. Rahul Thakur, Miss Harshi Singhi, Mr. Vedsagar Rajesh Suryavanshi, and Dr. Ravichandran Santhosh.

Other co-authors in this work include Dr. Khalid Gul from NIT Rourkela, Dr. Swarup Roy from Lovely Professional University, Dr. Srinivas Janaswamy from South Dakota State University, Brookings, USA and Dr. Kirtiraj K. Gaikwad from IIT Roorkee.

Fishing

India is the world’s second-largest fish-producing nation, contributing approximately 8% of global fish production, say NIT Rourkela researchers.

It also holds the distinction of being the top five producer of shrimp globally, with frozen shrimp being the top export commodity.

Given the scale and importance of seafood production, innovations that ensure freshness and reduce spoilage are of immense value, say NIT Rourkela researchers.

In this context, intelligent packaging systems, which preserve food while monitoring its quality, are rapidly gaining global interest.

Unlike conventional packaging that serves merely as a protective barrier, the intelligent packaging film developed by NIT Rourkela team offers visual cues about the product’s condition, making it a promising solution for enhancing food safety and reducing waste.

The beetroot peel extract was prepared separately, and then combined with the starch, gum tragacanth, and a small amount of glycerol to cast the films.

These were dried and tested for their pH-sensitivity and effectiveness in monitoring seafood freshness, said Prof Preetam of NIT Rourkela.

Pigments

Beetroot peels contain betalains, a group of pigments known for their bright colours and pH sensitivity, say NIT Rourkela researchers.

These pigments also offer antioxidant and antimicrobial benefits, making them suitable for food-related applications.

Incorporating these natural compounds into the starch-based film creates a biodegradable, safe, and responsive packaging material.

When the seafood begins to spoil and pH levels rise, the film changes colour, providing a clear visual indicator of freshness.

Starch

The choice of Kodo millet starch and gum tragacanth contributes to the film’s biodegradable and eco-friendly profile.

Kodo millet is an underutilised grain with excellent film-forming properties, while gum tragacanth enhances the mechanical strength and flexibility of the material.

The researchers believe that using such agricultural by-products not only supports sustainability but also adds value to food processing waste, such as beetroot peels.

At the laboratory scale, the cost of producing the film was estimated approximately Rs. 900 per kilogram.

When scaled up for industrial production, the cost is projected to range between Rs. 400 and Rs. 600 per kilogram, making it a potentially viable option for commercial use.

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