Conducting Research: A Personal Technical Experience
-Part V: At the National Aerospace Laboratories
By JIRARA
© JIRARA, September 2022
Published by JIRARA
on matrubharti.com
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, for any commercial purposes without the prior permission of the author and/or publisher.
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Disclaimer: This is exactly the same as in the previous part of the story.
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Continued from the story/article part IV.
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Scientific Cooperation with DLR, Germany:
Before I had joined NAL in 1986, the SED-NAL had already signed a cooperative arrangement for the bilateral exchange of scientists with the Institute of Flight Mechanics (IFM, DLR-German Aerospace Research), Braunschweig, Germany with a schedule that once in a year one scientist of FMC-SED would visit the IFM for 9 months and conduct research under the guidance of a scientist from IFM, and every alternate year a team of (maximum 5) scientists would visit NAL for a week, and make presentations of their research work and interact with the concerned scientists of FMC-SED (NAL); and in the beginning one senior boss had gone for initiating the cooperation, and in subsequent years it was started with first senior and then junior scientist/s and the program continued for several years.
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Being appointed as head of the FMCD (from January 2001 to July 2007)
Our senior boss had resigned after a long service here, and moved to USA to join some private aerospace research company that was owned by NRIs. Our next boss was to retire (after one year extension with NAL) by the end of year 2000, so a new head was to be chosen; and we in our division had four group coordinators (equally competent for the leadership), so there was some dilemma who should be chosen as the new head.
So, in September 2000, the then director (Dr. T. S. Prahlad) had called me to his chamber, but I had some inklings that the other three coordinators had also been called earlier to meet him and perhaps had discussed this issue. So, when I went to meet him, he told me that he had discussed the issue of the new leadership with my seniors-colleagues, and that he had decided to appoint me as the head of the FMCD from January 2001, to which I had said yes, and in October 2000 he had issued the letter of the appointment. And all the three group leaders assured me that they would cooperate with me in the task of the technical management of the division, which in fact they did with some varying feelings though, but this was just natural because of the competitive situation in which we all were performing, since each group had good amount of budget from the sponsored projects, and each was a highly knowledgeable scientist and well-versed in his/her technical skills.
Despite the promise given to me of the support, one group leader kept telling me almost for 3/4 months that I took away his position, grabbed his headship, snatched his higher status, and the like; I had already told him that I did not do anything, the director of the lab had handed over this responsibility to me and I did not refuse to him, just that. His contention, perhaps was that he had a proper aero degree, but was not chosen as a head of the FMCD, whereas I did not have any aero degree but was given the new higher level of responsibility; I felt very bad about this and him too; but could not help it.
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But at that time, from March 2001 (up to May 2001), I went on the sabbatical leave to Konstanz, Germany, to carry out some work on sensor data fusion with Prof. Florin Ionescu, University of Applied Science, on the DFG fellowship.
And almost at the same time, I was offered to attend one month’s prestigious course at the IISc. on some advanced management aspects, and since, I had to do the duties of the HOD, and was new to this aspect of leadership, I opted out of this course, and suggested that my junior colleague be chosen, and hence Dr. Mrs. Girija Gopalratnam was selected, who attended first the course, and was subsequently selected to visit Harvard (or Stanford) university for 10 days.
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CSIR Technological Shield (2003)
There was a notification that we (any group or the division from NAL) could propose for any one of the technology awards to be given by the parent organisation, CSIR: i) a proposal from the division, and ii) a major technology. I had prepared a proposal-document of several pages for the first kind of the award, detailing the R&D work and the innovations (with some certificates, etc.) that we had made in our division, and since the award included a cash prize of Rs. 2,00,000; and since it was to be distributed to the staff of the division, I had prepared a list of the members, and had indicated the amount to be given to each in proportion to their basic salary, if we won the award.
Fortunately, we did win the award, but to our immediate disappointment (since we would not get individual amount of the share of the prize money), it was not the first kind of the award; it was the second kind of: the Technology Shield for the year 2003 to our division, and this was of course much greater and highly prestigious award for the division, and how our proposal was upgraded to the shield level, I never came to know. We all were greatly surprized, but also very much excited that our work got the technological shield for the leadership and contributions to the development of Integrated Flight Mechanics and Control Technology for Aerospace Vehicles in the country; the shield was associated with a plaque, a certificate and a project-grant-prize of INRs. 30,00,000 for the project work, and only five scientists’ names were to be submitted, in whose names the certificates would be given; so I had given the names of three group leaders, mine, and the then director; since these were the major contributors.
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I and one group leader had gone to receive the trophy from the CSIR, and after the ceremony the trophy was shifted to the place where we were staying; and the next day I (the other group leader had gone on his forward journey to elsewhere) had brought it with me as a nearly 20-kg luggage piece to Bangalore, and it being Saturday I had kept it in my residence in the NAL quarter up to Monday morning; after which I had got it moved to NAL director’s office as it was customary to do so.
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The director was very happy that we got the shield and told me that the FMCD should give the lunch to the heads of all the division of NAL, to which I suggested that the director give the lunch and he readily agreed to that. The lunch was arranged and photos were shot. A group photo of the entire division with the members of the CLAW team (LCA control law group) was taken, later on the individual group leader got shifted the trophy, certificate and the plaque on to their own desk and the photo shoot taken, they all were very excited indeed.
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Later, I had noticed that some scientists had included this in their own biodata, though only five scientists were given certificates and the plaques; but I did not mind it, because the shield was awarded for a novel technology that was developed by the entire division as a whole (by the collective effort of all the then present and some past members of the division), it was great thing to happen to the FMCD.
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The fund associated with the trophy was never claimed from CSIR because for which we were supposed to propose a big project and utilize it; and since all the groups were already very rich in their existing budget, and were also busy with lot of work, nobody could propose any new project, and for which one has to hire some more people to work on the project, and as a result of this the money lapsed after three years, since it was not claimed. I had felt very bad about this, but could not help it.
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Guiding doctoral research (1993-1996, 2001-2007)
I had felt that since our activities were in the forefront of the technology, some scientists should pursue their doctoral studies, and I with the ‘go ahead’ from senior management had encouraged some to do this. In all I had guided five NAL scientists and one assistant lecturer (from VTU) towards their Ph.D.; and four scientists of FMCD had received also the lab’s research award after the completion of their degrees. The areas covered by them were: i) math modelling of an unstable aircraft from its closed loop data, ii) online recursive estimation techniques, iii) decision fusion with fuzzy logic, iv) image processing and fusion, v) reconfiguration control with fuzzy logic, and vi) real time control system for use in a wind tunnel.
Each one of these six Ph.D.’s. had risen to very high position in their careers, and three of them have even retired having served as a head of some respective divisions.
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Some Facets of the DLR-NAL cooperative program
a) Although, I was fairly senior, I had decided to go only after some junior scientists had visited the DLR. Hence, my turn came a bit later on; and when I was slated to go, I had done all preparation from my home front, and then when I went to the administration for the final go-ahead, I was told by the then AO that I would be required to sign the bond, i.e. if I resigned within three years of my coming back, I would have to pay complete expenses of my visit: the NAL salary, DLR salary, and that two-way air travel; to which I bluntly refused to agree, and I decided not to go to DLR; this upset everything (including the bosses), since even the permission from the headquarters had also come for me; but I did not bother since, I had learnt that some previous scientists who had visited on this program were not asked to sign the bond. This further delayed my visit.
b) In 1992-93, we had organised a 5-day joint workshop-cum-seminar at FMC-SED and after my presentation of a paper on parameter estimation of dynamic system with recurrent neural networks, the coordinator of a group of IFM told that I must visit DLR under the cooperative program and continue the research on this and related topic; to which we had agreed and then I had visited Braunschweig during April-December 1994; interestingly this time I was not asked to sign the bond!
c) There was a fairly senior scientist who always felt that he was denied of several opportunities for his career growth: i) of doing any sponsored project, ii) being denied an assessment-promotion, iii) not being sponsored for a visit abroad, and iv) not being allowed to pursue doctoral program to obtain Ph.D. When I became head of the FMCD, he continually approached me with his demands, so I assessed his performance, and I found that he was a sincere, hardworking and even an intelligent scientist, but he had a hearing-problem and he never used to use any device for this; and whenever he interacted with his seniors, he would not be able to understand them, and wound not carry out the work assigned to him properly; however he would continue to produce sensible reports and papers from the works he did on his own without any guidance from others; in essence he was a self-made man, and since he was not working in the lines with her immediate bosses, he was largely ignored. So, I decided to break this lethargic and partiality situation and allowed him to do a sponsored project, to go ahead for his doctoral program, and even I sent him to DLR; under the condition that he regularly used the hearing aid/device and listen to the instructions of the seniors and the guide without fail; which he did, and he completed all these three aspects with a great success. However, interestingly and ironically, when he made some presentation of some work to a review meeting, that I happened to attend, he did not thank me, but he profusely thanked his the then group leader (ironically because of the same group leader this scientist was after me to shift him to some other group!).
This disgruntled scientist got the Ph.D. just after his retirement, and then even served in a private college as the head of the instrumentation division for a year or two.
d) When I was head of the FMCD I had sent one lady scientist on deputation on this program to Braunschweig; she had gone alone, leaving behind her husband and an infant daughter (at her home; and after just 2 or 3 months she became very lone there, and called us and said that she wanted to come back, cutting short the 6-month’s stay; this became an issue for us; and her group leader made frantic calls to her and her husband to resolve the issue; the lady scientist was missing mainly her daughter; hence her husband decided to go to Germany with the baby and stay there for the remaining period so that she would complete her assigned work there. Fortunately, he got the visa and he stayed there for the remaining tenure of his wife’s deputation; and she completed her work with reasonable progress; if this issue was not resolved, then it would have been a bad incidence in the smoothly ongoing cooperation program; often the juniors do not realize the implications of their sentimentalism.
Presently, this lady scientist is the deputy head of the FMCD!
Continued…
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