Projects

Summer 2024

I did my summer internship under Sri. Satadru Bhattacharya, at Space Application Centre, ISRO.

On our planet, Earth, there exist such extreme environments, which are comparable to the environments on other celestial bodies; such places are called planetary analogues; during my internship, I analyzed a few of these analogues, like the samples from Puga Valley, a Venusian analogue and sample from Shimla slate, a potential lunar analogue, along with some thin sections of meteorites and thin section from other geological structure.

I had hands-on experience with the state-of-the-art equipment at ISRO, Vertex 80v FTIR spectrometer and Hyperion 3000 FTIR microscope. Also, the accessories used alongside this equipment allow us to use different measurement techniques. The spectrometer uses a Michelson interferometer and computationally applies the Fourier transform to the interferogram to acquire spectra over the whole range quickly. Meanwhile, the microscope combines the capabilities of a standard microscope and a spectrometer. Hence, we can zoom into a sample and take spectra of the areas of interest.

The aim was to do a thermodynamic analysis of the Venusian analogue by subjecting the sample to Venus-like temperatures (~465°C)  and recording the spectra to study the changes caused by the temperature of the spectrum, which will be observed by a probe/satellite doing these measurements on Venus.

I also did thermodynamic analysis of the (potential) lunar analogue, by subjecting it to lunar temperatures (~ -200°C).

The result was a thorough analysis of the Venusian and Lunar analogues using the FTIR setup and the documentation of the changes in spectra observed with temperature change. The result of this study can be helpful for the analysis of data acquired by probes visiting Venus or the Moon.

Fun fact: one day during my internship, an actual lunar sample was analyzed on this instrument; that sample was probably collected during the Apollo 16 mission, and the sample was procured from NASA.

Report

Winter 2023-24

I did an internship at NISER under Dr. Subhankar Mishra, during the Hackdunio 3.0 event, it was a project centered around Computer Science and Robotics where we initially gave a proposal which got accepted in August. We then worked on the proposed idea in the month of December to create a prototype. 

The aim was to make an ML-augmented walking stick for the visually impaired. The ML augmentation was centered around object detection/classification, and using additional sensors and (vibrating) actuators to help sense the surrounding environment.

This project gave me an insight into the basics of laboratory work and working with different electrical components (SBCs and modules like LiDAR), and the implementation of machine learning.

The result was a pre-trained model optimized to run an inference using limited computational resources because the apparatus needed to be power-efficient and mobile.