Prof Laxmidhar Behera is currently working as the Director, IIT Mandi on deputation from IIT Kanpur. He served as TCS affiliate faculty during 2021-22. During his 27 years of research and teaching career, Prof Laxmidhar Behera has contributed significantly to areas such as Intelligent Systems and Control, Vision based Robotics, Warehouse automation, Brain-Computer-Interface and Drone Technology. His work has a unique blend of theory and experiments. He has established industrial collaboration with TCS, Renault Nissan, and ADNOC, Abu Dhabi, BEL Bangalore while making significant technological development in the areas such robotics-based ware-house automation, vision and drone guided driver assistance system, and drone guided pipeline inspection systems. His team secured 3rd position in the Amazon Robotics Challenge 2017 among top 16 teams across the globe and 4th position in the stow-cum-pick event. He has supervised 24 PhD students to completion and currently supervises 14 PhD students. Besides, he has supervised more than 70 masters’ dissertations. He has published three graduate level text books, 110 peer reviewed journal papers, 208 papers in conference proceedings and 17 book chapters. His book entitled Intelligent Systems and Control published by Oxford University press is now in its 5th reprint and is being prescribed as a graduate level text book in many Universities across the world. Recently (April 2020) he published another book on Intelligent Control of Robotic Systems by CRC press Taylor & Francis – this book has been selected as the best Engineering book of the year 2020-21. Six of his papers have been given best paper awards in International/National conferences. He has established international research collaborations with ETH, Zurich, University of Texas, San Antonio, University of Edinburgh, UK, University of Ulster, UK, NAIST, Japan, and Deakin University, Australia. He has worked as Reader at University of Ulster, UK during 2007-2009 and has taken up visiting professor assignments at ETH Zurich, and FHG, Germany. He has acted as associate editors of two International Journals published by Taylor & Francis and Hindwai. He currently serves as the Associate Editor of IEEE Trans Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems. He is a fellow of INAE and senior member of IEEE.
Besides AI and Robotics, Prof Behera has taken initiative to show therapeutic values that Indian classical music, mantra and yoga can have on subjects suffering from mental stress and other kinds of psychic disorders. His recent publication in Scientific reports has been commended by peers and has attracted a lot of media attention:
Ashish Gupta, Braj Bhushan and Laxmidhar Behera, Short-term enhancement of cognitive functions and music: A three-channel model, Scientific Reports, (2018) 8:15528, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-33618-1, 2018
This paper deals with the cognitive studies concerning the effect of music on the human brain.
- New Indian Express reports: Melody can rid you of malady says IIT Kanpur study
https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/health/2018/dec/08/melody-can-rid-you-of-malady-says-iit-kanpur-study-1908907.html - The Hindu reports - Decoding music effect on brain network
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/decoding-musics-effect-on-brain-networks/article25413326.ece - Zee TV - a very highly rated media house has reported this work with nine minutes clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=N_YbASlpBtY&feature=emb_logo - Another highly acclaimed network News18 also made a story on this work.
https://youtu.be/4cg5nNYPyns
Besides academics and research work, Prof Behera has been active in social sectors as well. He runs a free girl school in Nandagaon, Vrindavana. He established a new campus for Bhaktivedanta Gurukula in an area of 75 acres in Vrindavana in 2019 where 400 students avail boarding facility. This gurukula style Vidyalaya inculcates character among students as they learn to live among cows, organic farms and a spiritual ambience centred around values hidden in Bhagavad Gita.
- During the initial lockdown because of COVID pandemic, he distributed free cooked food packets to hungry children for 50 days:
https://www.facebook.com/1641627749454791/posts/2649991898618366/?sfnsn=wiwspwa&d=w&vh=e&d=w&vh=e&extid=sNk9a5skpZqh1byV
https://odishabytes.com/this-odia-professor-feeds-1000-daily-around-iit-kanpur-campus/ - He has been teaching the universal principles of peace through Bhagavad Gita since for the last 27 years to youth - his recent five-day sessions during COVID were attended by 400+ daily for five days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9axR1BXMifk - He has launched an online course on Bhagavad Gita both in English and Hindi in a systematic way with scientific temper. The initiative is known as Learn Gita Live Gita.
https://learngitalivegita.com/
This course will soon be available in other languages such as Odiya, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Chinese, French and Spanish.