Aniruddha Desai
La Trobe University
Professor Aniruddha Desai has been awarded a Study Melbourne Research Partnerships program grant for his project titled…
Making data driven quality management accessible to small scale dairy cooperatives in India
International Partners: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani
La Trobe University, IIT Kanpur, and BITS Pilani are founding partners of Asian Smart Cities Research and Innovation Network (ASCRIN) – valued at over AUD $13.5 million. La Trobe University will bring their expertise of developing and using sensors and data analytics for improving production farming across Dairy, Beef and Sheep sectors. BITS Pilani and IIT Kanpur teams’ expertise lies in their abilities to undertake milk sample testing and characterisation. The research team has secured access to background technology from Australian Industry partner to use their end-to-end logistics condition monitoring sensors and data platform to undertake field data collection for this project.
Other research partners: SensaData Pty Ltd, The Product Makers (TPM) Pty Ltd
New low-cost sensors to pinpoint milk quality issues in India
- India’s booming dairy industry is affected by poor milk quality, with 41% failing quality tests
- Sensors with inbuilt data analytics and traceability algorithms will detect issues in real-time in the supply chain
- Commercialisation opportunities within industry for the developed sensor systems and analytic algorithms
Learn more about the other researchers who have also been awarded a Study Melbourne Research Partnerships program grant in 2021.
The Indian dairy industry accounts for 19% of the world’s milk production and is worth US$145.7 billion, and yet the industry is affected by poor milk quality, with 41% of milk failing quality tests. This project aims to develop next generation low-cost sensor systems that can be used in the dairy supply chain to pinpoint problems in real-time.
Mid-infrared spectroscopic sensors are commonly used to detect the presence and concentration of various molecules, and will be used to detect the deterioration of milk quality. The data from these sophisticated sensor systems will inform actions for supply-chain optimisation.
Lead researcher, Professor Aniruddha Desai, is the Director of La Trobe University’s Centre for Technology Infusion. The centre has, over 14 years of operation, developed an industry standard technology realisation facility for everything from commercial grade microchip design to large-scale bid-data analytics and modelling. BITS Pilani has world class research and development facilities and received Instution of Eminence status in India in 2018. The partners will jointly fund two PhD projects to support this work during and after the 12-month project delivery.
Due to the large scale of the Indian dairy industry, the commercialisation potential with industry partners is significant. This project will create new intellectual property, including data analytics algorithms for better planning and innovative sensor systems that can reliably indicate ‘deviation from normal’ within milk.