R3plica

Meet Hitenman Daliya

Robitics Instructor @ Young Engineers Club

Maharashtra, India 

Hitem Mandaliya is an Electronics and Telecommunication Engineer with passion in Robotics. And turning the Passion in Profession.

His interest lies in Computer Vision, PCB Designing and Robots. Have developed and worked on small robots based on several applications like Agriculture, Medical and Home Automation

What inspired you to pursue a career in robotics?

Since my childhood, I was inspired by all the electronics around us and was eager to learn how it works.

That interest of mine led me to choose the Field of Science in junior college. After that, I took Engineering in the field of Electronics and Telecommunication because since childhood I wanted to learn Electronics.

Once there was a robotics workshop in my 1st semester which I participated in and from that day I developed an interest in Robotics.

Then slowly I started working on mini-projects on my own and learning new technologies in robotics.

When I was doing R&D on a project called floor cleaner I wanted to put a camera on it so it can detect objects and takes command automatically etc.

But I didn’t know how it will detect and how it will distinguish between an object and a wall and there were many factors.

After some research, I came to know about Computer Vision and since that point, I wanted and started working in Computer Vision in the field of Robotics

Define computer vision and its application?

Computer Vision is a field that enables a computer to look things, identify them, and process the data as human vision does and then provide output and it also comes under the field of Artificial Intelligence.

In a more simple language computer looks at an image as an array of pixels in red, green, and blue shades. But computer vision helps the computer to sense photos and videos as humans do.

Applications:

• Automotive

• Driving

• Healthcare

• Agriculture

• Drones

• Surveillance

• Retail

Do you have any Robotics projects that want to share your experience?

Currently am working on two things, they are Computer Vision and PCB designing. Since both are much important in robotics. And Recently I have made two projects in the field of Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT is basically connecting hardware and software through the Internet.

I have made an IOT switchboard which I have given name as socket .io. Generally, switchboard has switches but this board is a switchless board.

You can control your switches with your mobile through the Internet. The range of this is unlimited since it is connected through the internet.

Not only this, let’s say I am in my office and before reaching home I want my air conditioner to make my room cooler. So I can turn on my air conditioner from my office so by the time I reach home my room is cool.

My next project was IOT farming. If a farmer is not present on his farm and he is far away.

So he can remotely access all the equipment through IoT. He can also measure the temperature of crops through his mobile. There was also a system for irrigation.

If a sensor in the soil senses that the land is a dry one notification will pop up in the farmer’s mobile and remotely he can give the command from mobile to start the pump motors on the farm. And all the data can be monitored every day through mobile.

What type of data is processed input and output in the execution of a computer vision?

Computer vision basically takes an image or a video as an input. The photo or video can be pre-recorded or it can be live.

And inside this photo/video it takes an array of pixels as input and processed that data according to which the programmer wants and gives output accordingly. Computer vision works by making analyzing different components of the image.

Does computer vision work as some of us watch before in movies like Iron Man or Terminator?

Yes! Computer vision works similarly to some as we see in movies such as Terminator and Iron Man (My favorite).

We all must have seen in movies how Iron Man looks through his suit. His suit detects all the objects coming in front of him and acts accordingly.

Can you explain with a simple example of how computer vision works?

We can take the example of Tesla's self-driving car. There are multiple cameras present on the car which detect all the objects including humans and take action accordingly.

It not only detects images/videos but it also processes that data and tells us what that object if it’s a human or traffic-light or speed breaker anything. If the camera detects that there is a Red signal then it gives the command to stop and soon as it detects the green signal it starts moving.

If a camera detects a speed breaker ahead of it, then it will automatically reduce the speed of the car.

Explain how could Computer Vision fight something like the Coronavirus Outbreak?

Since we all know that there is a lockdown in most countries. But there is a need to manufacture and supply essential things like food, medicines, masks, and many more. All this works done by our brave doctors, nurses, farmers, and government staff.

But there is a risk that anyone could get infected.

So in this Robots can play a major role. We will take an example of a pharmaceutical company that manufactures medicine and also an example of doctors and nurses giving medicine to coronavirus affected patients.

Till now we know that computer vision is used to detect and act accordingly, so we can implement robots which can detect with the help of computer vision in companies which can manufacture medicines and also help in packaging on medicines for transportation.

It is a risk for a doctor or nurse to go every time to a patient to give medicine. A robot can do that work too.

It can deliver medicines to the patient in the hospital.

Talk to us about your project on "Object Detection" that born in the pandemic lockdown?

I wanted to learn python programming language because it is almost all the field. So I started with the basics of python and also did an online course. Then I thought I could interface python with hardware and make some projects out of it.

That time I came to know about computer vision and I started working on that. My aim is to build a robot which can do all the things that human can do and also things that human cannot do.

So I started learning the basics of Computer vision like how to read images and videos and how to process it since I would be using cameras in my robot.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO OF THE “OBJECT DETECTION“ PROJECT

In this lockdown, I finally got time to work on object detection using computer vision and I made this small project.

It was a great learning for me and now I can go into more depth of computer vision