Atharva College of Engineering (ACE), Malad

History

Atharva College of Engineering was founded in 1999 at Borivali(W), Mumbai. It was located in a temporary building adjacent to MK college and in the premises of a junior school in Borivali. Later it moved onto its own campus in Charkop, Malad (West) in 2001.

Organisation and administration

Sunil Rane is the Founder Secretary of Atharva Educational Trust and Executive President of Atharva Group of Institutes which runs the college. Gopinath Munde (Ex-Deputy Chief Minister Of Maharashtra) is the President of the Atharva Educational Trust. Dr. S. P. Kallurkar is the Principal.

College festivals

"Rhythm" is the college's annual festival, taking place in even semesters.

"Techithon" is a festival targeting current technology, when games and seminars take place in Techithon. It takes place in Odd semesters. Each year Techithon has a theme. Rock Shows are a common during festivals.

"Atharva cha raja" the annual Ganesh utsav is a part of the college's festivals.

"E-Week" which hosted by Ember (The Entrepreneurship cell)

"IEEE-360°" by IEEE Student Chapter. In 2012, Atharva won National level Nilima-Rovshen Innovation & Creativity award from NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network). In 2013, Atharva won National level Championship Runner up award from NEN.

Academic departments

Atharva College of Engineering is approved by the All India Council for Technical Education, New Delhi, government of Maharashtra, and is affiliated to University of Mumbai.

As of 2015, five streams of engineering are taught:

Computer Engineering

Electronics engineering

Information Technology

Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

Electrical Engineering

Sports

The college has a cricket ground, volleyball court, basketball court, and gym. The college has a Baseball team and also sports indoor games like chess, carrom. It conducts an annual sports festival in the second half.

Infrastructure

Presentation rooms, seminar halls, auditorium, labs, and workshop are on the campus, with recreational rooms, swimming pool, game room. Robotics Center, I-MAC Lab, Embedded Lab. This college is the only college in University of Mumbai to host a state-of-the-art Atharva Satellite Ground-Station developed and run by the students of the college under the support and guidance of the college management. Robotics Center gives facility for students to give Practical experience to enrich their knowledge.

Student organisations

Organisations in the college include the "Student's Council", "Ember" (The Entrepreneurship cell), "Paradigm of Life", "CSI-Atharva Student's Chapter", "IEEE-Atharva Student's Chapter" and "NSS-Atharva Student's Chapter".

Interactions

The college has connections with CSI and IEEE (India). ISTE chapter form in A college.

Atharva satellite ground station

Atharva Satellite Ground Station is a Satellite Technology research project undertaken by students of Atharva College of Engineering. Started in 2008, the project has been an integral part of the subsystem of IIT Bombay's Student Satellite project 'Pratham’. The project team has achieved a substantial part of their objectives. They have also ventured into allied domains.

The Project setup is on the 5th floor of the college and has a control room with fully functional circuitry which can track various satellites and carry out complex signal processing of satellite signals. Equipment's / Capabilities include 2 Crossed Yagi antennas with 145 MHz central frequency and 2 Crossed Yagi antennas with 437 MHz central frequency - 10 dB gain for receiving the signal transmitted by the satellite. The setup also includes a Professional Weather Station for real time weather monitoring. Adding to it is the Vertical Dipole Antenna tuned on the Amateur VHF; UHF Bands for terrestrial communication. The entire Ground- Station is capable of Remote Access: All satellite tracking features can be remotely operated over a secure internet link. Besides satellite communication, the setup can also serve as a communication base during emergency situations.

The project was formally inaugurated in a grand Wireless Technology & Satellite Communication Symposium in March 2010 by successfully establishing communication with Delhi via the VO-52 satellite. The setup was visited by Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), France.

The project was completely designed by technically driven and motivated students to whom the college provided a platform for doing something innovative and unconventional. The technically sound environment has created a knowledge base the helps in practically implementing the knowledge gained in engineering course books, thus complementing the curriculum.

The team has also ventured into the field of high-altitude ballooning. After thorough research, the students are developing a high-altitude balloon with a payload of weather monitoring and pollution measurement called APSARHA - 1 (Atharva's Payload System: A Radio linked High-Altitude) air balloon.

In the immediate future, we plan to receive data from almost all the student satellites and also use the station to serve as a base station for communication during disaster situations. Next plans include contacting NASA's satellite ISS to have a direct communication of the college students with the astronauts via the ARISS program.

Also, most of the team members are licensed Ham Radio Operators and hence have the permission to establish communication on Amateur frequency bands with all base stations around the world. The team has actively been involved in sharing their knowledge with fellow students thereby giving them an opportunity to explore the world of wireless communication and interact with renowned people in this domain.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre was established in Atharva College of Engineering, Malad (west) in 2012.

IEDC-Atharva college of Engineering is funded by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi for first year with total grant of Rs 13.3 Lakhs. IEDC Mission is "Develop Institutional mechanism to create Entrepreneurial culture in academic Institutions to foster growth of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst the faculty and students. The goal of IEDC is to bring out the software/hardware product which has market value, prepare Business plan and to form a company. Through this students learn the value of product, costing of the product, marketing strategy, funding and the process of registration of company. Every year student’s five projects are funded by DST. DST - IEDC Projects

1. Wireless VSWR The growth in the mobile communications industry has been astounding in recent years. With increase in competition among cellular companies, The number of cellular towers are increasing drastically. Cellular companies has to keep track of their signals emitting from Cellular Towers in various aspects such as "Signal Strength, Signal to Noise Ratio, SWR" to remain a strong competitor in the market. A wireless User-friendly VSWR Meter (site Master) is beneficial for cellular companies as it sends data wirelessly to the administration centers, and allows to keep the track of signal strength.

2. VERTICAL Axis Windmill (VAWM) Selection in Top 50 Innovators in IIGP-13 Our project VAWM has been selected in India Innovation Growth Program 2013 in Top 50 innovations nationwide which is conducted in collaboration of FICCI-DST-Lockheed Martin-Govt. of India-Stanford School of Business-IC2, Texas-IUSSTF. Began partnership firm named ‘VenTech’ for providing Wind & Solar Energy Turnkey Solutions. In talks with Bangalore-based firm for collaboration in Renewable Energy.

3. SOLAR BASED REGENERATIVE STREET LIGHT AND ADVERTS The project has been launched in the market and we are getting good response from customers. We are also planning to have the production of Solar system in house. Presently we have a small workshop in outskirts of Mumbai, and very soon we will enhance it with heavy and good machinery.

4. Three Axis CNC Machine As the materials are getting complex and composite, the processes required to be done on material are increasing and are getting more complicated. Some process requires computer controlled milling, machining and tooling, and as we are using composite materials more now; when we require more precision we are required to use laser based processes. For milling and tooling we need VHM, VDM, CNC machines. And for laser based processes we require laser cutter and engraver. Each of this machine costs more that 25 lacs upwards depending on the precision and size. This increases the capital investment and the time required to complete the job. In our machine, we are combining these two types of machines, which will reduce the investment required and reduce the time to process the job.

5. Green E- Breathe To come up with something that could solve the problem of energy generation and its usage, which can be done in day-to-day life. So we thought of building a portable mobile charger which could use human energy like foot pressure while walking or body power like muscle contraction and expansion which can be utilised to charge devices like mobiles, pagers etc.

Atharva Robotics Lab

Atharva College of Engineering, jointly with KUKA Robotics, has set up Industrial Robotics Training Centre for Educational Institutions at ACE Malad(W). The ACE’s Robotics Training Center is India’s second and Maharashtra’s first industrial training center in the Engineering colleges. ACE has set up Robotic center in order to train students in Advanced Automated Manufacturing and produce highly skilled technical manpower in the field of Industrial Robotics. The trained manpower will help Indian Manufacturing Industry to adopt latest technologies to improve quality and work.

The centre is equipped with a standard training cell consisting of a KUKA KR-16-2 Industrial Robot with required auxiliary equipment.

This training cell is capable of performing multitude of operations used by the automobile, and other manufacturing/Production industries.

In addition to this, a robotics computer simulation lab is also being established with latest industrial robotics simulation Software like Sim Pro & Sim Layout, used to design, develop and simulate robotic operations for different manufacturing establishments.

At ACE Robotic center provide realistic, theoretical and practical training on KUKA robots. With Robotic center ACE’s students can learn to utilise the latest automation technology while applying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

Expenditure of this robotic cell along with full furnished computer lab cum lecture hall is approximately above Rs.1 crore.

This highly equipped robotics center will be the milestone in the field of technical education. If the students can practice on industrial robot which he/she going to handle after joining the industry naturally the candidate becomes industry ready.

Rankings

Atharva college of engineering was ranked 47th in the top 100 engineering institutes in India and 48 in private institutes of India by Times of India. IN 2014-15 survey by times group ace ranked at best 5th engineering college in Mumbai and ranked 48 in private engineering college

Grading system

ACE follows the Percentage System as followed by the University of Mumbai.

Admission

Admissions for ACE are based on MHT-CET exams which matters on a percentile level of engineering aspirant student