Project Information


IIT Hyderabad
As part of the MHRD initiative, IIT Hyderabad was set up in 2008. The academic programmes of IITH were launched in August 2008. IITH is currently located in the campus of the Ordnance Factory in Yeddumailaram. The permanent campus of IITH will be in Kandi, Sangareddy District. Based on an agreement at the meeting of Prime Ministers in 2008, the Governments of India and Japan have agreed to cooperate in setting up the new IIT at Hyderabad - covering infrastructure, technical and financial partnership. This Indo-Japan collaboration will be one of the unique strengths of engineering research at IITH. The Vision of IITH is to be the cradle of inventions and innovations for the betterment of India and the world as a whole.

Project Background

In 2008, as part of the Indo-Japan collaboration, IITH was encouraged to submit a proposal to the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Government of Japan under the global programme, "Science and Technology Cooperation on Global Issues". IITH identified the use of "Communications and ICT during natural disasters" as a key topic of national interest and relevance. Being a bilateral programme with Japanese Universities, IITH sought to leverage the key expertise of Japanese academia in the area of earthquake monitoring, weather hazard sensing and emergency communications. In December 2008, the proposal titled, "Information Network for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Recovery" was submitted jointly by IITH and Keio University to JST. In April 2009, it was announced that IITH had been awarded a prestigious five-year JST project with a total funding of Rupees Twenty Crores.


Project Details:
Project Title: DISANET - Info Network for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Recovery
Duration & Funding: Five years, July 2010 - June 2015, Rupees Twenty Crores
Nodal Institution: IIT Hyderabad

Participating institutions:
    • IIT Hyderabad - Project execution and coordination
    • IIT Madras - Telecom Centre of Excellence
    • IIT Kanpur
    • National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad
    • Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Hyderabad
    • International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad
Key Aspects of Project:
    • Multi-institutional participation and inter-disciplinary R & D
    • Leverages key areas of strength in Japanese and Indian universities
    • Addresses a key national need in India
      • Robust sensor networks for pre-disaster monitoring
      • Rapidly deployable communications and database system for post-disaster relief
    • Key deliverables in the form of a deployed emergency communications system
    • An opportunity to establish key research programmes at IITH

Project Focus
1. Earthquake Monitoring
Earthquakes are a main source of major natural disasters. The goal of this project is to leverage the vast expertise at the University of Tokyo, a world-leader in earthquake engineering, to develop a monitoring, 3D modeling and analysis programme in the Himalayan belt, which is most prone to earthquake activity. The structural behaviour of buildings will also be studied to assess vulnerability and post-disaster response.

2. Weather Sensors and Analysis
The Indian Meteorological Department has the mandate to monitor the weather and weather-related hazards in India. The University of Tokyo has vast experience in the area of robust sensor networks and sensor data fusion for weather monitoring. Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) will be deployed to monitor parameters such as rainfall, wind, temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure. The data from AWS units will be communicated wirelessly to a central processing node for analysis. The key focus is to develop the ability to analyze weather data in dense granularity and to forecast hazardous weather conditions.

3. Emergency Communications System
The goal is to develop and implement an emergency communications infrastructure for natural disaster mitigation and recovery. The design of an emergency communications network requires expertise in cellular communications, high data rate communications (WiMAX / Wi-Fi), satellite backhaul, broadcast communications. This joint project will bring together experts in India and Japan to develop a prototype for an emergency communications system for demonstration in India. The main partner for this task is Keio University, where researchers have already developed an emergency communications system. The services to be provided include telephony, audio, video and data connectivity, collection and dissemination of information and logistics.

4. Use of IT during Natural Disasters
Since multiple Government and NGO agencies are involved in post-disaster recovery, it is important to share the information for the activity of disaster recovery operation. The goal of this project is to develop database techniques to access information efficiently, and securely. "Data Mining" will be a key technique to collect, process and disseminate the information while maintaining privacy and access control. The focus of the project will be on techniques such as security in distributed databases, massive real-time data processing and cloud computing.


For additional details, please contact:

Professor R. David Koilpillai
rdk [at] iith.ac.in
Mobile: +91-9444976584