ISLAMABAD: (APP) Robotics technology being funded for R & D in Pakistan
Research Groups in different universities are being facilitated and funded to promote Robotics Technology, announced Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) on Thursday.
Funds are also provided for holding and participation in international seminars, workshops and contests abroad through Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and other sources like ICT R&D Fund, Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) and HEC's Research grants.
Official sources on Thursday said the government has taken a number of policy measures and introduced incentive mechanisms to promote Robotics Technology during last few years and major amongst them included: The sources said Research & Development in field of Robotics is being undertaken by National Institute of Electronics (NIE), National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) and COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) while Automotive Control Research Groups working at these institutes are actively involved in a number of projects of basic and applied research relevant to industrial and societal tasks by providing solutions to various problems to improve quality of life enhance productivity and competitiveness.
The sources said the researchers at CIIT and NUST are working on projects on visual guided robotic systems for use in surgery, navigation control, mapping and geometric representation of environmental parameters.
Moreover, they said a specialized department of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at NUST is offering MS and PhD degrees since 2011 while a National Engineers Robotics Contest is organized annually at NUST with support from HEC, with objective to train individuals for engineering services in Pakistan. Cash prizes are awarded to the winners.
The sources said the R&D Group Working at NIE has been able to develop programmable logic controllers for use in automatic industrial controls having vided applications on automation of mechanical processes in manufacturing industry.
They said robotics as an important discipline of S&T is being taught at Graduate and Post-graduate levels by more than 60 Universities of Engineering, Sciences and Technology in Pakistan while efforts have been made for sharing R&D work in fields of Robotics with organization like Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and other defense related organizations, for wider applications of Robotics technology in industrial processes.