IITKGP

Rajendra Machavaram

Associate Professor

Agricultural and Food Engineering

rajendra@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

Responsibilities

  • Vice-Chairperson, Centre of Excellence in Precision Agriculture & Food Nutrition
  • Warden, J C Bose Hall

Research Areas

Our group broadly works on design, prototyping and testing of agricultural machines/equipments/implements employed in field preparation, sowing, transplanting, weeding, spraying, harvesting and threshing in cultivation of various crops. We consider the requirement, functionality and strength of the machine in designing; availability of materials and ease of manufacturability in prototyping; and performance evaluation in testing of the designed and developed machines.
We focus on designing the tractor and its sub-systems, power tillers and Internal Combustion engines as conventional energy as well as Solar, Wind, Biomass and Bio-energy as alternative energy resources for power the agricultural machines. We also apply computers, electronics and robotics in agricultural machines to enhance the productivity and timely operation. Our designs include application of advanced computational and optimization techniques such as artificial intelligence and evolutionary algorithms. Even we consider the engineering factors of Human-Machine-Interaction to reduce the fatigue and to increase the productivity of machine operators.  
Prediction of optimized pretreatment process parameters for biodiesel production using ANN and GA, Predicting the draught requirement of tillage implements in sandy clay loam soil using an artificial neural networks, Improved Radial Basis Function neural networks on structural optimization, damage and crack identification of beam structure, Development of a visual basic program for design of farm implements, Development of a vegetable transplanter with robotic arm for handling paper pot seedlings, Development of a solar energy operated tea shoot harvester, Performance evaluation of emulsified diesel fueled engine, Optimization of operating parameters of seed planters with maximum cell fill using ANN-PSO technique, CFD simulation of Savonius-Davis wind turbine for maximum power extraction, Three Dimensional Kinematic analysis of Three Point Hitch System and Steering System of a Tractor, Recognition of matured tomatoes in field using machine vision technique are some of our team research studies. 
  • Evaluation of a Laboratory-based Prototype of a Comb-type Picking Mechanism for Chili Pepper Harvester Gupta C., Tewari V.K., Machavaram R. By Journal of Biosystems Engineering 47 69-78 (2022)
  • Need of Automation in Paddy Nurseries for Raising Paddy Seedlings in India: a Review Choudhary V., Machavaram R. By Journal of Biosystems Engineering 1-14 (2022)
  • Economic feasibility study of aerators in aquaculture using life cycle costing (LCC) approach Roy S.M., Machavaram R., Moulick S., Mukherjee C.K. By Journal of Environmental Management 302 - (2022)
  • Applications of gravity aeration system in aquaculture a systematic review Roy S.M., Tanveer M., Machavaram R. By Aquaculture International - (2022)
  • An image processing approach for measurement of chili plant height and width under field conditions Gupta C., Tewari V.K., Machavaram R., Shrivastava P. By Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences 21 171-179 (2022)
  • Diversified aeration facilities for effective aquaculture systems a comprehensive review Roy S.M., Jayraj P., Machavaram R., Pareek C.M., Mal B.C. By Aquaculture International 29 1181-1217 (2021)
  • Optimizing the aeration performance of a perforated pooled circular stepped cascade aerator using hybrid ANN-PSO technique Roy S.M., Pareek C.M., Machavaram R., Mukherjee C.K. By Information Processing in Agriculture - (2021)
  • Optimizing the seed-cell filling performance of an inclined plate seed metering device using integrated ANN-PSO approach Pareek C. M., Tewari V. K., Machavaram R. , B. N. By Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture 5 1-12 (2021)
  • Injection molding process optimization of a bi-aspheric lens using hybrid artificial neural networks (ANNs) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) Bensingh R., Machavaram R. , Boopathy S. , Jebaraj C. By Measurement 134 359-374 (2019)
  • Multi-Objective Design Optimization of a Three Phase Squirrel Cage Induction Motor for Electric Propulsion System using Genetic Algorithm Gupta A., Machavaram R. , Kshatriya T. , Ranjan S. By IEEE International Conference on Smart Technologies for Power, Energy and Control (STPEC) 2020 1-6 (2020)

Principal Investigator

  • AICRP on Farm Implements and Machinery (FIM)
  • Centre of Excellence for Digital Farming Solutions for Enhancing Productivity by Robots, Drones and AGVs
  • CRP on Engineering Interventions in Precision Farming and Micro Irrigation Systems (PF & MIS)
  • Farm Machinery Testing Centre (FMTC)
  • Optimal In-field Laser Land Leveling Operation for Equal Cut-Fill Ratio and Minimum Travel Path using Particle Swarm Optimization
  • Testing of Farm Implements under Laboratory and Field Conditions
  • Vision Guided AI Enabled Robotic Apple Harvester

Co-Principal Investigator

  • Evaluation of District Skill Development Planning (DSDP) Awards under SANKALP Programme of MSDE Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
  • PRECISION FARMING DEVELOPMENT CENTRE The Director of Horticulture Department of Food Processing Industries and Horticulture
  • Resolving Gaps in Scaling up of Millet Value Chain for Technical Backstopping Micro Units under PMFME Ministry of Food Processing Industries
  • Smart and Sustainable Water Infrastructure - Management of Water Distribution Network using GIS and Hydraulic Modelling and the Journey to Smart Systems Apex Committee of SPARC

Ph. D. Students

Abhishek Ranjan

Area of Research: Solar Energy Operated Equipment for Horticultural Crops

Ambuj

Area of Research: Path Planning Optimization for Agricultural Applications

Arundhati Boruah

Area of Research: Data Driven Precision Agriculture

Ayan Paul

Area of Research: Robotic Harvester under Controlled Environment

Basani Nagaraj

Area of Research: AI enabled Drone Assisted Crop Sprayer

Chaitanya Madhaw Pareek

Area of Research: Precision Agriculture and Farm Mechanization

Chanchal Gupta

Area of Research: Precision Agriculture

Harsh Nagar

Area of Research: Artificial Intelligence Applications in Agricultural Mechanisation

Pooja Verma

Area of Research: Computer Vision and Machine Learning Applications for Crop Maturity Determination

Ravi Shankar Singh

Area of Research: Design and Development of Agricultural Machines

Subha Manash Roy

Area of Research: Aeration System

Vanknavath Shobhan Naik

Area of Research: Harvesting of cotton crops

Vinod Choudhary

Area of Research: Design and Development of Agricultural Machines

MS Students

Nuha Mohammed Adelkhier Elshiakh

Area of Research: Agricultural machinery

William Wachira Mwangi

Area of Research: Computer aided design of Agricultural Machines