Ravi Saini

Areas of Research Interest

• ASIC & ASIP Design
• VLSI Architectures for Image & Video Processing Algorithms
• FPGA Based Embedded System Design
• Digital VLSI Design
• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• Artificial Intelligence

Professional Career

• Principal Scientist (Feb 2018 – Present), Intelligent Systems Group / Integrated Systems Group, CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India
• Senior Scientist (Feb, 2013 – Feb, 2018), Integrated System Group / IC Design Group, CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India
• Scientist (Feb, 2005 – Feb, 2013), IC Design Group, CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India
• Senior Research Fellow(April 2003 – Feb, 2005), IC Design Group, CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India

Teaching

• Associate Professor (Feb, 2018 – Present) in Engineering Sciences, Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), India
• Assistant Professor (August, 2010 – Feb, 2018 ) in Engineering Sciences, Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), India

Administrative

• Group Head, Intelligent Systems Group, CSIR-CEERI (August 10, 2020 to Present)
• Member, Stores & Purchase Committee (SPC), CSIR-CEERI (April 2021 to Present)
• Member, अनुकंपा नियुक्ति समिति, CSIR-CEERI (April 2021 to Present)
• Member, उपस्कर प्राथमिकीकरण समिति, CSIR-CEERI (April 2021 to Present)
• Member, जनशक्ति विकास समिति, CSIR-CEERI (April 2021 to Present)

Academic Details

• Ph.D. (2013)
  Thesis Title: Application Specific VLSI Processor Design for Parametric Speech Synthesis.
  Supervisors: Dr. Chandra Shekhar, Distinguished Scientist & Former Director, CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India
  and Prof. B. Prasad, Elect. Sc. Dept, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra, India
• M.Tech. (2002)
  Instrumentation Engineering
  Punjab University, Chandigarh, India
• M.Sc. (2000)
  Electronics
  DAVV, Indore, MP, India
• B.Sc. (1998)
  Electronics
  Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra

R&D Projects

Ongoing Projects:

• Research in Human Centered Robotics with Special Emphasis on Field and biomedical Rehabilitation (Indo-Korea Joint Network Centre on Robotics) (PI)
  Funded by DST, New Delhi
  Duration: 2018-2022
  Budget: 38.97 Lakhs
• Bio-mimetic and Phyto-technologies Designed for Low-Cost Purification and Recycling of Water System (Indo-EU) (PI)
  Funded by DBT, New Delhi
  Duration: 2019-2023
  Budget: 64.55 Lakhs
• Resource-Constrained AI (Co-PI)
  Funded by MeitY New Delhi
  Duration: 2020-2023
  Budget:244.57 Lakhs

Completed Projects:

Industry Funded Projects

• 2D RGB Camera Input based Face Anti-Spoofing Solution(Co-PI)
  Funded by LG Soft India Pvt. Ltd., India
  Duration: 2018-2020
  Budget: 53.10 Lakhs
• Evaluation of Behavioural Video Analytics System (Member)
  Funded by United White Metals Ltd., India
  Duration: 2017-2020
  Budget: 196.12 Lakhs
• Development of Detailed SOW for Behavioural Video Analytics (Member)
  Funded by United White Metals Ltd., India
  Duration: 2016-2017
  Budget: 4.78 Lakhs

Government Agencies Sponsored Projects

• Vision-based Surveillance and Security System (CSIR Security and Surveillance of Vital Installations Mission) (Member)
  Funded by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India
  Duration: 2018-2020
  Budget: 363.80 Lakhs
• National Programme on Perception Engineering – Phase II for Design of an Embedded System for Low Cost Haptic Rendering of Emotion Expressions to the Blind (Member)
  Funded by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), India
  Duration: 2013-2018
  Budget: 109.14 Lakhs
• Brain Computer Interface for Drones/UAVs (CSIR Intelligent Systems Mission)(CO-PI) (Member)
  Funded by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India
  Duration: 2018-2020
  Budget: 172.68 Lakhs
• Development of Edge Analytics Platform (CSIR Intelligent Systems Mission)(Member) (Member)
  Funded by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India
  Duration: 2018-2020
  Budget: 50 Lakhs
• CEERI-IIT Indore Joint R&D Programme -Hardware Realization of Machine Learning (Member)
  Funded by CSIR-CEERI & IIT Indore, India
  Duration: 2017-2019
  Budget: 6.00 Lakhs

Research Projects

• Special Manpower Development Programme for Chips-to-System Design (SMDP-C2SD)(Member)
  Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India
  Duration: 2015-2019
  Budget: 9990 Lakhs
• Special Manpower Development Programme in VLSI Design and Related Software (SMDP-II))(Member)
  Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt. of India
  Duration: 2005-2014
  Budget: 2306 Lakhs
• National Programme on Perception Engineering (Activities: Facial Expression Analysis and Tele-teaching System)(Member)
  Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt. of India
  Duration: 2008-2012
  Budget: 159.34 Lakhs
• Design of an Embedded Processor for Smart Camera Systems(Member)
  Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt. of India
  Duration: 2007-2011
  Budget: 51.42 Lakhs

Student Guidance

• Ongoing Doctoral Students: 06
• Ongoing M.Tech. Students (Thesis Projects): 01
• Completed M.Tech. Students (Thesis Projects): 10
• Lab/Study Oriented Projects of BITS B.E./B.Tech. Students: 90

Publications

Total Research Publications in Peer-Reviewed International Journals/Conferences: ~50

Selected Most Recent Journal Publications:

• S. Saurav, R. Saini, and S. Singh, “A dual-stream fused neural network for fall detection in multi-camera and 360∘ videos,” Neural Computing and Applications, 2021 (SCI Impact Factor – 5.606).
• S. Saurav, R. Saini and S. Singh, “Facial Expression Recognition Using Dynamic Local Ternary Patterns With Kernel Extreme Learning Machine Classifier,” IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 120844-120868, 2021 (SCI Impact Factor – 3.367).
• S. Jain, A. Rustagi, S. Saurav, R. Saini, and S. Singh, “Three-dimensional CNN-inspired deep learning architecture for Yoga pose recognition in the real-world environment,” Neural Computing and Applications, vol. 33, no. 12, pp. 6427-6441, 2021 (SCI Impact Factor – 5.606).
• S. Saurav, R. Saini, and S. Singh, “EmNet: a deep integrated convolutional neural network for facial emotion recognition in the wild,” Applied Intelligence, vol. 51, pp. 5543–5570, 2021 (SCI Impact Factor – 5.086).
• S. Saurav, P. Gidde, R. Saini, and S. Singh, “Dual integrated convolutional neural network for real-time facial expression recognition in the wild,” The Visual Computer, 2021 (SCI Impact Factor – 2.601).

Honors

• ‘Padma Bhushan Dr. Amarjit Singh Memorial Excellence Award’ in the category of Best Technological Solution for developing the Face Recognition-based attendance system (FRAS), CSIR-CEERI Pilani, September 21, 2021.
• Skoch Transformation Innovation Award for Smart Camera System Technology, 2016
• Skoch Order-of-Merit Award for Smart Camera System Technology, 2016
• Special Guest and Project Elevator, Science Exhibition (60 Projects), JJT University, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India, January 09, 2015
• Chief Guest, Engineer’s Day, Yaduvanshi College of Engineering and Technology, Narnaul, Haryana, India, September 14, 2014

Professional Associations

Member, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), USA (January 2011 – Present)
Member, SSI (Semiconductor Society of India) (August 2013 – Present)

Reviewer

Reviewer, Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India): Series B, Springer
Reviewer, IEEE Sponsored International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI-2015), India
Reviewer, IEEE Sponsored International Conference on Advanced Electronic Systems (ICAES), CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, India. September 21-23, 2013

CSIR Associations

Member of Sports Promotion Board (SPB), CSIR from 2009 to 2012
Captain of All India CSIR Cricket Team from 2011 to 2018
CSIR won the prestigious Nayudamma Memorial Cricket Tournament 2 times under my captainship and was awarded the best batsman 2 times