IIT Kharagpur Mining SRF Recruitment 2026

IIT Kharagpur Mining SRF Recruitment 2026: Overview

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) is recruiting a Senior Research Fellow for a sponsored project coordinated by Aurobinda Routray in the Department of Mining Engineering. The project is building an AI-enabled platform for diagnosis, prognosis and health management of mining electrical systems, using a dragline as its practical case study. This is a temporary research appointment tied to the project rather than a regular institute post.

The research problem sits where mining operations, electrical systems and data science meet. Instead of looking at equipment data only after a failure, the project aims to use signals and operating information to understand equipment health and support earlier decisions. Your work is therefore likely to connect raw system data with useful engineering indicators and AI models that can be tested against the project case study.

This fellowship is strongly implementation-focused. The official skill profile highlights data analytics, signal processing, machine learning and AI software, along with MATLAB and Python. It also points to practical use of Pandas, NumPy and Scikit-learn for data handling and statistical modelling, plus TensorFlow or PyTorch for deep-learning work. A researcher who can move comfortably from cleaning data to comparing model behaviour will fit the project better than someone with only classroom exposure.

The project also needs clear engineering judgement. Mining equipment data can be noisy and operating conditions can change, so useful work involves more than training a model once. You should be ready to check the quality of inputs, choose suitable features, compare results, explain limitations and keep the software reproducible for the wider team. The role offers a focused route into applied AI for heavy engineering while keeping the work grounded in a real electrical system.

Service Conditions and Caveats

• Nature of engagement: The institute lists this as a temporary project position. The appointment does not by itself create a claim to a regular IIT Kharagpur post.
• Project alignment: Your research should stay connected to the AI-enabled health-management platform and its mining-electrical-system use case.
• Research leadership: The work is coordinated by Aurobinda Routray, so technical priorities and project outputs will follow the principal investigator's research plan.
• Practical fit: Evidence that you have already used the listed analytics, programming and deep-learning tools will help show that you can contribute without a long software-learning period.

Application Submission Notes

Apply through the IIT Kharagpur SRIC recruitment portal against reference IIT/SRIC/R/AEH/2026/109. The specific project page carries the official description and opens the linked online application form, so use that page instead of the general vacancy index.

• Analyse operating and sensor data from mining electrical systems
• Process signals and prepare reliable datasets for model development
• Build machine-learning and AI models for equipment health assessment
• Develop analysis workflows in MATLAB or Python
• Test deep-learning approaches with TensorFlow or PyTorch
• Compare model results and document technical limitations
• Prepare reproducible code, research notes and project findings