Vikram Sarabhai

He founded the Physical Research Laboratory, the Space Science Research Institute, the Department of Space, and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

In 1962, Sarabhai organized space research as chairman of Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR). He set up of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station and began manufacturing sounding rockets in India. He drew up plans to transmit education to remote villages across India with the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE). After Sarabhai died in 1971, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) in Tiruvananthapuram is named for him.

Satish Dhawan. Another early dedveloper of India’s  space program was Satish Dhawan. He was the longest serving director of the Indian Institute of Science when he died in 2002.

                                                
                                                        Satish Dhawan
              Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him to head the nation’s space program. When the space scientist and former chairman of ISRO died, Indian President, K. R. Narayanan said, “India’s space programmes owe to a great extent its spectacular growth and high level of maturity to the stewardship and visionary leadership of Prof. Dhawan.”

                                                     Maya is used in the film and TV industry, as well as for computer and video games, architectural visualization and design.The product is named after Maya, the Sanskrit term for illusion

                                            Maya is the culmination of three 3D software lines: Wavefront’s The Advanced Visualizer (in California), Thomson Digital Image (TDI) Explore (in France) and Alias’ Power Animator (in Canada). In 1993 Wavefront purchased TDI, and in 1995 Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) purchased both Alias and Wavefront  and combined them into one working company, producing a single package from their collective source code. The combined company was referred to as Alias|Wavefront. In the mid-1990s, the most popular pipeline in Hollywood films was a combination of tools: Alias Studio for modeling, Softimage|3D for animation, and PhotoRealistic RenderMan for rendering. This combination was used for numerous films, such as Jurassic Park, The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It took Alias|Wavefront two more years after the merger to release Maya.

                                                           Both Alias and Wavefront were working on their next generation of software at the time of the merger. Alias had taken a Macintosh product, “Alias Sketch!“, moved it to the SGI platform and added many features to it. The code name for this project was Maya. Maya was developed in close collaboration with Walt Disney Feature Animation, during the production of Dinosaur, and the GUI was all customizable as a requirement from Disney so they could set up their own GUI and workflow based on decades of animation experience. This had a large impact on the openness of Maya and later also helped the software become an industry standard, since many facilities implement extensive proprietary customization of the software to gain competitive advantage.

It was then decided to adopt Alias’ “Maya” architecture, and merge Wavefront’s code with it.

Later, Alias|Wavefront was renamed Alias. In 2003, Alias was sold by SGI to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and the private equity investment firm Accel-KKR. In October 2005, Alias was sold again, this time to Autodesk, and on January 10, 2006, Autodesk completed the acquisition and Alias Maya is now known as Autodesk Maya.

In 2003, Maya won an Academy Award “for scientific and technical achievement”, citing use “on nearly every feature using 3-D computer-generated images

                                                        The missile is marginally over eight meters in length, 670 mm in diameter and weighs 3,000 kg. It combines the propulsion system and self-homing device of Russian’s “Yakhont” or “Onyx” system with on-board computer equipment developed by Indian defence scientists.

   The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, as well as the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 1800s, while a Chinese zoetrope-type device was invented already in 180 AD.These devices produced movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the “creator” of the art of film animation, as there were several people doing several projects which could be considered various types of animation all around the same time.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special-effect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years.

   The earliest surviving stop-motion advertising film was an English short by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called Matches: An Appeal (1899). Developed for the Bryant and May Matchsticks company, it involved stop-motion animation of wired-together matches writing a patriotic call to action on a blackboard.

  J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American filmmaker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to filmmaking by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton’s “lightning artist” routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès’ early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator.

Traditional animation

           Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators’ drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

                The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators’ drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The “look” of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators’ work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term “tradigital” to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology.

Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), Treasure Planet (USA, 2002) and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003).

• Full animation -refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more “cartoony” styles of those produced by the Warner Bros. animation studio (Iron Giant, Quest for Camelot, Cats Don’t Dance). Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982) and The Iron Giant (US, 1999), Nocturna (Spain, 2007)
• Limited animation- involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons). Some examples are; Spongebob Squarepants (USA, 1999–present), The Fairly OddParents (USA, 2001–present) and Invader Zim (USA, 2001–2006).
• Rotoscoping -is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors’ outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), used as a basis and inspiration for character animation, as in most Disney films, or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (USA, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981).
• Live-action/animation -is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples would include Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (USA, 1988), Space Jam (USA, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (USA, 2002).

 Stop-motion animation

                       Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the type of media used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation.

Puppet animation- typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiří Trnka and the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present).

Puppetoon- created using techniques developed by George Pál, are puppet-animated films which typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet.

                                       

                                                                clay animation

Clay animation, or Plasticine animation often abbreviated as claymation, uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside of them, similar to the related puppet animation (below), that can be manipulated in order to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated works include The Gumby Show (US, 1957–1967) Morph shorts (UK, 1977–2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan Švankmajer‘s Dimensions of Dialogue (Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films include Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain

Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving 2-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam‘s animated sequences from Monty Python’s Flying Circus (UK, 1969–1974); Fantastic Planet (France/Czechoslovakia, 1973) ; Tale of Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the TV series (and sometimes in episodes) of South Park (US, 1997).

                                                

Silhouette animation is a variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Weimar Republic, 1926) and Princes et princesses (France, 2000).

Model animation refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects, and split screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films such Jason and the Argonauts (1961), and the work of Willis O’Brien on films such as King Kong (1933 film).

Go motion is a variant of model animation which uses various techniques to create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop-motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effects scenes for the film The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Another example is Vermithrax from Dragonslayer (1981 film).

Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion animation, as opposed to specially created items.

Graphic animation uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc.) which are sometimes manipulated frame-by-frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stop-motion camera is moved to create on-screen action.

Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other such effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts.

Computer animation

Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer.

2D animation

2D animation figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of tweening, morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.

Examples: Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Danny Phantom, Waltz with Bashir

• Analog computer animation
• Flash animation
• PowerPoint animation

  3D animation

  3D animation are digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. In order to manipulate a mesh, it is given a digital skeletal structure that can be used to control the mesh. This process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (ex. gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of Motion capture to name but a few, these techniques fall under the category of 3d dynamics. Many 3D animations are very believable and are commonly used as Visual effects for recent movies.

 Terms

• Photo Realistic Animation, is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life, Using advanced rendering that makes detailed skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc to mimic real life. Examples include Up (2009, USA), Kung-Fu Panda, Ice Age (2002, USA).
• Cel-shaded animation, is used to mimic traditional animation using CG software. Shading looked stark and less blending colors. Examples include, Skyland (2007, France), Appleseed (2007, Japan), The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002, Japan)
• Motion capture, is used when live action actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express (2004, USA), Beowulf, 2007), Avatar (2009, USA).

2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.

 Other animation techniques

• Drawn on film animation: a technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, for example by Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage.
• Paint-on-glass animation: a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass, for example by Alexander Petrov
• Erasure animation: a technique using tradition 2D medium, photographed over time as the artist manipulates the image. For example, William Kentridge is famous for his charcoal erasure films.
• Pinscreen animation: makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation.
• Sand animation: sand is moved around on a backlighted or frontlighted piece of glass to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when animated because of the light contrast.
• Flip book: A flip book (sometimes, especially in British English, called a flick book) is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, but may appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books.

Other techniques

• Character animation
• Chuckimation
• Multi-sketching
• Special effects animation
• Animatronics
• Stop motion.

                        Rockets were invented in medieval China (Circa 1044 AD) but it’s first practical use for serious purpose other then entertainment took place in 1232 AD by the Chinese against the Mongols at the siege of Kai-Feng-Fue. Thereafter from 1750 AD to 1799 AD Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan  (Sultan of Mysore, in south India) perfected the rocket’s use for military purposes, very effectively using it in war against British colonial armies. Tipu Sultan had 27 brigades (called Kushoons) and each brigade had a company of rocket men called Jourks. In the Second Anglo-Mysore war, at the Battle of Pollilur (10 September 1780), Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan achieved a grand victory, whereby the whole British detachment lead by Colonel Baillie was destroyed and 3820 soldiers were taken prisoner (including Colonel Bailli). the contributory cause being that one of the British ammunition tambrils was set on fire by Mysorean rockets.

                At the Battle of Seringapatam in 1792, Indian soldiers launched a huge barrage of rockets against British troops, followed by an assault of 36,000 men. Although the Indian rockets were primitive by modern standards, their sheer numbers, noise and brilliance were said to have been quite effective at disorienting British soldiers. During the night, the rockets were often seen as blue lights bursting in the air. Since Indian forces were able to launch these bursting rockets from in front of and behind British lines, they were a tremendous tool for throwing the British off guard. The bursting rockets were usually followed by a deadly shower of rockets aimed directly at the soldiers. Some of these rockets passed from the front of the British columns to the rear, inflicting injury and death as they passed. Sharp bamboo was typically affixed to the rockets, which were designed to bounce along the ground to produce maximum damage . Two of the rockets fired by Indian troops in 1792 war are on display at the Royal Artillery Museum in London .

 Portrait of Tipu Sultan Sultan of Mysore, present day Karnataka, India.

                           Later at the battle of Srirangapattana (4th Anglo-Mysore war) in April 1799, British forces lead by Colonel Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) ran away from the battlefield when attacked by rockets and musket fire of Tipu Sultan’s army. Unlike contemporary rockets whose combustion chamber was made of wood (bamboo), Tipu’s rockets (weighing between 2.2 to 5.5 kg) used iron cylinder casings that allowed greater pressure, thrust and range (1.5 to 2.5 Km) . The British were greatly impressed by the Mysorean rockets using iron tubes. At the end of war more then 700 rockets and sub systems of 900 rockets were captured and sent to England. William Congreve thoroughly examined the Indian specimens to reverse engineer and making its copies that were later used successfully in naval attack on Boulogne  (1806), siege of Copenhagen  (1807) and also against Fort Washington (New York) during the American Independence War, that is recounted as, rockets’ red glare in the U.S. National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.”

                                    Indian troops rout the British. The English confrontation with Indian rockets came in 1780 at the Battle of Guntur. The closely massed, normally unflinching British troops broke and ran when the Indian Army laid down a rocket barrage in their midst.

                                           After the defeat of Tipu Sultan (04 May 1799) and other Indian kingdoms, major parts of India either fell to British colonialist or accepted British hegemony. Indian independence was largely compromised and the country was systematically exploited and suppressed by the British colonialism. Lack of political and economic independence stymied Indian science and military technology for 150 years till 1947 when it finally threw away the yoke of foreign occupation, to transition back as an independent sovereign nation state.

Rocketry in Modern India

After regaining independence in 1947, India focused all its energy in nation building, primarily on economic and industrial development fully understanding the key role of science and technology. Indian rocketry was reborn thanks to the technological vision of Prime Minster Jawaharlal Nehru. Professor Vikram Sarabhai took the challenge of realizing this dream. Professor Sarabhai was an able leader and visionary who gave shape to modern Indian rocketry and space endeavours. President Dr A.P.J. Kalam, who played a key engineering role in realizing both the Indian SLV-3 space launcher as well as the Prithvi and Agni missiles, once said: “Many individuals with myopic vision questioned the relevance of space activities in a newly independent nation, which was finding it difficult to feed its population. Their vision was clear if Indians were to play meaningful role in the community of nations, they must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to their real-life problems. They had no intention of using it as a mean to display our might.”

Realization of economic development for Indian masses also requires safeguarding its borders and interests. During the 1971 War that saw India liberating Bangladesh, the US attempted coercion by force projection by sending the USS Enterprise of the 7th Fleet into the Bay of Bengal. This combined with nuclear weapon developments in China impaired Indian security and that accelerated Indian strategic weapon programs including indigenous missile programs. Initial missile programs like Project Devil (a theatre ballistic missile) and Project Valiant (an intercontinental ballistic missile) were scattered and stymied by many issues, which included technology development, financial resources and manpower.

Indian parliamentary democracy requires total civilian control of all defence forces and defence related organizations. The independent Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India oversees financial accounting of all government expenses and serves as a watchdog which monitors the use of public funds for defence expenses.

Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP)

The Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) was formed in 1983 with the aim of achieving self-sufficiency in missile development & production and today comprises of five core missile programs: the strategic Agni ballistic missile, the tactical Prithvi ballistic missile, the Akash and Trishul surface-to-air missiles and the Nag anti-tank guided missile. The program has given India the capability to produce indigenous missiles in other key areas as well. Indigenous development was required to overcome attempts by Western nations, to impose their will on developing nations, by enforcing pacts like the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to control access to and availability of advanced weapon systems. Undaunted, hats off to all the brilliant Indian scientists who have toiled so hard in their dedicated efforts to make the program successful and being on the cutting edge of missile technology.

 Although the US and the Soviet Union were allied against the Axis powers during World War II, the two states disagreed sharply both during and after the conflict on many topics, particularly over the shape of the post-war world. The war had either exhausted or eliminated the pre-war “Great Powers” leaving the US and USSR as clear economic, technological and political superpowers. In this bipolar world, countries were prompted to align themselves with one or the other of the superpower blocs (a Non-Aligned Movement would emerge later, during the 1960s). The suppressed rivalry during the war quickly became aggravated first in Europe, then in every region of the world, as the US sought the “containment” and “rollback” of communism and forged myriad alliances to this end, particularly in Western Europe and the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union fostered Communist revolutionary movements around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension and relative calm. On the one hand, international crises such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and especially the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, raised fears of a Third World War. The last such crisis moment occurred during NATO exercises in November 1983, but there were also periods of reduced tension as both sides sought détente. Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons.

The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. With the coming to office of US President Ronald Reagan, the US increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union, which was already suffering from severe economic stagnation. In the second half of the 1980s, newly appointed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the perestroika and glasnost reforms. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the sole superpower in a unipolar world.

The crew of Columbia shuttle flight STS-107

Ø                    The branch of medicine dealing with the production and use of  artificial body parts.

 Ø                   Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury  or missing from birth or to supplement defective body parts.

Army soldier plays  table                               ”…where function meets art”    

 football with  prosthetic arms.

          ANN 
    (ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK)

                                                              An adaptive system that changes its structure based on external or  internal information. It mimics our original neural system. An artificial neuron is a computational model inspired in the naturalneurons. 

ELECTROMYOGRAPH

                             An Electromyogram (EMG) is a test that is used  to record the electrical activity of muscles.

PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

                                The EMG-based control systems developed for prosthetic  arms are either open-loop or closed-loop . 

                              Schematic of the proposed force control method.

1-DOF master robotic arm.     1-DOF slave robotic arm.

HAND FORCE ESTIMATION

                                            The EMG signal were collected from 3 upper arm muscles: biceps brachii, triceps brachii, brachioradialis by using EMG sensors as shown in fig:

FORCE CONTROL

EXPLICIT FORCE CONTROL

IMPEDENCE CONTROL.