With a vision to manage and efficiently use the highly skilled researchers, scientists and experts of robotics and automation to generate resources based on our innate strengths towards transforming Pakistan into one of the technologically advanced nations of the world and facilitate the highly skilled researchers, scientists and experts of robotics and automation by creating a consortia of advanced labs throughout the country, and to ensure that the research and development.
The National Center of Robotics and Automation has launched a consortium of 11 labs over 13 universities of Pakistan with its center headquarter at NUST College of E&ME. Prof. Ahsan Iqbal (Minister of Planning Developments and Reforms) in College of EME on 09th May 2018 inaugurated the NCRA.
The thirteen labs at the NCRA include: Robot Maker Lab that will be equipped with the state-of-the-art rapid prototyping, machining and fabrication facilities for robot parts. The Lab has two main streams dealing with mechanical and electrical part manufacturing of robots. It is a shared facility between all NCRA Labs and will act as a centralized robot manufacturing facility to support NCRA Labs, start-ups, academia and industry. Following manufacturing processes will be available: Metal working, Plastic working, Wood working, Carbon Fiber processing, and PCB circuit design and fabrication.
The Robot Design and Development Lab is to serve as a fusion center where real world (preferably local) problems are picked, given to a multidisciplinary team, and lead till commercialization. Secondary objectives will include, but not limited to, human resource development and providing a platform where industry, startups, and academia can collaborate.
The Agriculture Robotics Lab has been set up in order to realize the potential of precision agriculture and agricultural robotics technologies for higher water efficiency, enhanced agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability via peer reviewed research, industrial collaborations, and prototyping new systems, creation of test beds, job creation, trainings and entrepreneurship.
MEMS Sensor Design and Test Lab is to develop skilled manpower through scientific research to produce world class MEMS experts having expertise in design and testing to produce world class R&D in MEMS and initiate commercial activities in this area in Pakistan. Moreover, it will also support the local needs of the academic institutions, strategic organizations especially the research groups working in the field of robotics and automation.
Meanwhile, the Human-Centered Robotics Lab aims to design and develop integrated robotic systems, based on smart sensing and actuation, to seamlessly interact with humans, actively learn from them and eventually create an effective collaborative environment. The lab will focus on the development of following application domains: Collaborative Robots, Exoskeletons, Active Prostheses and Active Orthoses.
The Swarm Robotics Lab will serve as a scaling solution for National Center for Robotics and Automation by providing an application agnostic swarm intelligence platform. The lab is composed of three sub-labs, i.e., Swarm Intelligence Lab, Computer Vision and AI Lab and Decentralized Communications Lab.
The Haprics, Human-Robotics and Condition Monitoring System Lab is a joint lab of NEDUET and MUET, with an aim to execute the state-of-the-art researches and development in the field of Haptics & HumanRobotics Lab (HHR) at NED University and Condition Monitoring Systems (CMS) at Mehran University. HHR will specifically deal with the design and development of Haptic/Tele-robotic interfaces (for Disaster Management and Medical Applications) and STEM-based Education/Assistive Robots.
Other labs include: Industrial Monitoring and Automation Lab at ITU Lahore, UAV Dependability Lab at FAST NUCES, Control Automotive and Robotics Lab at BUITEM and MUST, and Advanced Robotics and Automation Lab at UET Peshawar.
For more information on the labs you can visit the NUST website.
