Core Research Areas

This domain group mainly focus on performing cutting edge research on analysing complex industrial systems. It is important to track the complex system behaviour over time so that the best preventive and corrective maintenance practices could be deployed, and the system’s premature failure could be avoided. The objective is to form the basis for the system operational capability studies & cost-benefit analysis of the system. Developing robust models for the system under different operating conditions opens up the scope for a good comparison study among the models about their suitability to meet the expectations. The research group has worked on major projects in the renewable energy & water desalination area where the design of data collection, development of the model for system analysis, and its validation were carried out. The group has worked for CC Plant, cable industry, desalination plant, aluminum industry and developed robust models for the system analysis.

This group mainly focus on Condition-based maintenance, Automatic Fault Diagnosis, Functional failure, process instrumentation, and Maintenance management. The scope lies on various promising domains including  Process equipment maintenance, Instrumentation and Control for Performance Optimization of Multi-Scale Systems, and condition monitoring, application and development of engineering technologies Signal processing, AI, and Machine learning applications to meet the industrial needs. This multidisciplinary research group has the competence and experience in supporting the development of Instrumentation and Control Technology and Science in the scope of research in various fields of application. The group’s expertise lies primarily in-process sensors, intelligent instrumentation, embedded systems, smart condition monitoring, digital image processing, data fusion, data modeling, and robust control and estimation

Energy Conversion Technologies and Management is one of the strongest areas of research expertise available in the college, with proven track record of successfully involved in securing research projects and collaborating with erudite professionals of international repute. The scope of this group is also included augmentation and integration of Wind Farms into Power Systems, Grid Frequency Dynamics, Hybrid Renewable Energy System Penetration (Standalone) and Grid-Connected System (non- Autonomous), Smart grid technologies, FACTS devices, and power electronics, Future Energy Storage System (Hydrogen Gas Production) and Fuel Cells Applications. This multidisciplinary research group strives to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with fundamental and applied research across Smart grid technologies, FACTS devices and power electronics, Clean Energy, Thermal system, Energy conversions, and its management. The studies will cover energy and exergy analysis to determine the thermodynamic potential for improvement.

Design, manufacturing, Mechatronics, Automation, and Robotics are the important research areas in Industry 4.0 in which many staff and students of NUS are doing research already. Industry 4.0 focuses on modern technologies like additive manufacturing, 3D and 4D printing, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT technologies etc. These technologies are the current trend in the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using smart technology. Design, manufacturing, mechatronics, and robotic Engineers’ role and responsibilities are very crucial in the current and future Industrial revolution to change the world. Many universities are having research groups that are doing researches in the industry 4.0 technologies. So, a research group is formed with the faculties who have expertise in the modern manufacturing area to enhance the research work in our NUST campus.

Nanotechnology & the development of novel materials for the circular economy are the significant areas of research expertise available in the college with many facilities and proven track records. The focus is on the nanostructured materials with fundamental application of nanoparticles and Nano thin films technology in the Biomedical and environmental, wastewater treatment and corrosion. The scope of the project is to develop and apply nanotechnology innovations through transforming laboratory research into industrial-scale development of new products by innovative techniques through novel materials from Plant/crop-based renewable resources, Biomaterials, Polymers, Photocatalysis, Corrosion inhibitors for Industrial effluent treatments, waste management, eliminating waste and the continual use of resources in order to give emphasis to economical and sustainable solutions. In addition, this research group focuses on wastewater treatment and corrosion with the applications of Nanotechnology and novel materials. The Scarcity of water and the need for protecting the health of ecosystems and people is the driving force to pursue research in the area of wastewater treatment and corrosion. Novel materials are synthesized from natural resources that can inhibit corrosion and result in considerable savings to the country’s economy.

The AI research group is interested in a variety of algorithms that mimic aspects of human intelligence or other biological systems. This research group conduct applied research in Applications of AI and ML in Engineering which includes; automated planning, robotics, data mining, image processing, healthcare and medical, vision learning, computational systems, manufacturing areas from the aspects of fault diagnosis, quality inspection, improving the safety of working places and other aspects as well. Research activities are based on four main conceptual axes and their main fields of application are: (i) Deep learning (ii) Pattern recognition (iii) Adaptive and intelligent systems, and                 (iv) optimization of complex systems. The techniques developed by this research group can be used to solve concrete and complex problems, for example, in the development of convolutional neural networks to detect tumors or the level of depression of a patient, and this in a context where must deal with a massive amount of data that typically has limited annotations

This multidisciplinary group is dedicated to realizing sustainable development by efficient use of natural resources and transition towards the circular economy. Research includes water resources, wastewater treatment technologies: like membrane technologies, water desalination, membrane bioreactors, microbial fuel cells, modelling studies for wastewater recycling. Waste to material and energy recovery technologies: like biogas production, algal biofuel, MFCs, activated carbon production from waste, recycling, and recovery of different waste materials, developing eco- friendly techniques and materials. Conducting studies on achieving SDGs, circular economy, resource recovery, EIA, air pollution, and climate change. Further, this group also takes up research in the area of sustainable development of water resources and management and has a strong research base in groundwater assessment, flood assessments, dam reservoir operation, dam reservoir water quality, water-energy-food nexus, stormwater collection systems, and water distribution networks.

The cost of civil infrastructure constitutes a major portion of the national wealth. Its rapid deterioration has thus created an urgent need for the development of novel, long-lasting and cost-effective methods for repair, retrofit, and new construction. As the number of civil infrastructure systems increases worldwide, the number of deteriorated buildings and structures also increases. Complete replacement is likely to be an increasing financial burden and might certainly be a waste of natural resources if upgrading or strengthening is a viable alternative. Few attempts have been done for flexural strengthening and shear strengthening of RC beams and short and long column retrofitting using ferrocement, SIFCON, and FRP. Appreciable results were found. Further study is in progress in this area. An attempt is made to develop the eco-friendly (geopolymer) concrete using low calcium fly ash and locally available material spent catalyst with 100% replacement of cement.