Our group focuses on researching and prototyping hardware and systems for connected devices and wearables, with applications in healthcare, consumer electronics, and industrial IoT. Our specific research interests include developing hardware security measures to protect devices from unauthorized access, securing device communications at the physical layer, and engineering low-power devices and wearables with edge AI/ML capabilities for secure and privacy-preserving data processing and analytics.
Hardware Security: Developing Physical Unclonable Function (PUF)-based security measures to protect wearable devices from unauthorized access or replacement (e.g., PUFs for wearables).
Short-Range Secure Communication: Explore different modalities of secure and ultra-low-power short-range communication between wearables and off-body transceivers. (e.g., visible light communication, human body communication)
Tiny-ML: Application of tiny machine learning for resource constrained edge devices such as MCU-based embedded systems. E.g., on-device abnormality detection of vital signs for healthcare applications.
Engineering Wearables: Developing ultra-low-power, rigid and flexible wearable devices for vital signs monitoring, supporting on-device machine learning algorithms for anomaly detection, secure short-range communication technologies and PUF-based hardware security measures.
IIIT-Bangalore, Machine Intelligence and Robotics COE (MINRO), Center for Internet of Ethical Things (CIET), E-Health Research Center
GitHub repository hosting the resources and projects for the embedded systems and electronics systems packaging courses offered at IIIT-Bangalore: https://github.com/dr-polachan/Embedded-Systems-by-Dr.-Polachan
[Pinned] Open Positions: Part-Time and Full-Time Ph.D. [More Details]
[Patent Grant, August 2025] Kurian Polachan, Kavya Agarwal, Ritesh Lalwani, Abeena U, and Arul Vignesh, System and Method for Visible Light Communication, Indian Patent Application No. 202341048494, filed August 11, 2023. Patentee: International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
[August 2025] CDWL welcomes, Ph.D. candidate Neelabh Keshav, and MS research students Shashwath Rao, Akshaj Raj
[Patent Grant, March 2025] Pralay Chakrabarty, Ananya Lakshmi Ravi, and Kurian Polachan, System and Method for Identification of IoT Nodes Based on GPIO Pull-Up/Down Resistors, Indian Patent 563531, granted Mar. 25, 2025. Patentee: International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
[Paper Acceptance, April 2025] (Accepted) S. Nagarajan S and Kurian Polachan, "An Autoencoder-Based TinyML Model for On-Device Arrhythmia Detection," International Conference on Smart Applications, Communications and Networking, Istanbul, 2025
[Paper Acceptance, January 2025] (Accepted) Dilli Babu Porlapothula, Kurian Polachan, CapPUF: a Tamper-Resistant PUF Utilizing I/O Capacitances for IoT Nodes", has been accepted for presentation at the 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, London, UK from May 25-28, 2025.
[Paper Acceptance, October 2024] (Accepted) Soumick Majumdar, Anshul Madurwar, Anmol Shetty and Kurian Polachan, "hbcLock: Encrypted RF Communication Utilizing Body-Coupled Keys for the Internet of Bodies", VLSID 2024, Bangalore, India
[Paper Acceptance, October 2024] (Accepted) Kurian Polachan, and Bijeet Basak, PyBlkSim: An Open-Source Block-Based Discrete-Time Simulator, COMSNETS 2025, Bangalore, India
[Paper Acceptance, October 2024] (Accepted) Phani Pavan Kambhampati, Jagan P, Kurian Polachan, Madhav Rao, Murmur: A Secure and Low-Energy Audio Communication for the Internet of Bodies, COMSNETS 2025, Bangalore, India
[June, 2024] Prof. Kurian Polachan presented two papers at the IEEE MELECON conference and served as the session chair for the session on Sensors and Cyber Physical Systems
[June, 2024] Travel support offer from SERB (https://serbonline.in/SERB/its) for attending conference IEEE MELECON 2024, Portugal. https://2024.ieee-melecon.org/
Hosted - Online Guest Lecture on RF Systems Design by Dr. Manu Thayyil, Celtro Gmbh, Dresden, Germany.
[New: March, 2024] Congratulations to Kavya Agarwal, Ritesh Lalwani, Abeena U for acceptance of their paper on low-energy visible light communication in IEEE SmartNets, USA, 2024.
[New: March, 2024] Two research papers on Hardware Security is accepted in IEEE MELECON 2024, Portugal. Congratulations to resesarchers of CDWEL - Pralay Chakrabarty, Ananya Lakshmi Ravi, Shab Naz, Ayesha Daniya Mulla, Sumayya H, and Rifa Sameen Sarang.
[August 2023] CDWL Welcomes Postdoc Dr. Pralay Chakrabarty Ph.D., IIT Guwahati) and Research Associate S Ananda Theertan (M.Tech, IIT Hyderabad)
[August 2023] Patent Filed on “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VISIBLE LIGHT COMMUNICATION”, Indian Patent Application Number: 202341048494
[August 2023] Invited talk on "Introduction to Internet of Bodies and Human Body Communication", Samvaad at IIIT-Bangalore
[July 2023] CDWEL welcome MS by research candidates Soumick Majumdar and Dilli Babu Porlapothula
[June 2023] Invited talk on "Introduction to Internet of Bodies and Human Body Communication" as a part of M2M and IoT Workshop at MVJ College of Engineering, Bangalore. (Link)
[June 2023] CDWEL welcome summer research interns Piyush Kumar (NIT Rourkela), Abeena U (IISER Bhopal), Ananya Ravi (IIITDM Kancheepuram) and Dara Sai (NIT Meghalaya).
[April 2023] RTOS workshop by Peeyush Kumar from Infineon. Organized as a part of Embedded Systems Design Course at IIIT-B.