About

Hello,

Hello, I'm Chirag C. Shetty or simply Chitty if you can't roll the 'r'.

I am an Engineer. I like to learn how things work. I love to build stuff, while trying to get the big picture. Robert Noyce and David Packard - both brilliant engineers and visionary business leaders - are my role models among many others. As a researcher, I greatly admire Claude Shannon (he quantified something as abstract as 'information'!).

I graduated from IIT Bombay in 2017 with Dual Degrees (Bachelors & Masters) in Electrical Engineering. I specialized in Communication Systems & Signal Processing. I was awarded the President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal at IIT-B Convocation 2017.

I have worked at Texas Instruments, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Deutsche Bank in the past. I have 3 published research works and 3 patents (more under review). Since January 2020 I am a graduate researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

To know more scroll down or visit my LinkedIn. Let's connect there! Links to my GitHub and Google Scholar profile. (Photo Credits: Vasilis Livanos)

Publications & Patents

2014-2020

Publications

Systems for ML: Baechi: Fast Device Placement of Machine Learning Graphs, Under review at ACM TOCS (journal), 2022, [link to draft], [Baechi-PyTorch Project page] (Extended version of this SoCC 2020 paper)
Communication Systems: Understanding and Embracing the Complexities of the Molecular Communication Channel in Liquids, MobiCom 2020
Information Theory: On Decentralized Power Control for Ergodic MIMO Multiple Access Channels, First Author, ISIT 2019, Paris
Signal Processing & Analog: Signal Processing for GPS/IRNSS Receiver, Master's Thesis 2017, IIT Bombay
Bio-inspired Computing: Live demonstration: Spiking neural circuit based navigation inspired by C. elegans thermotaxis, First Author, ISCAS 2015, Lisbon, Portugal

2018-19

Patents

Texas Instruments

(more under review)

Reasearch - Summary

2020 - Current

At UIUC - Distributed Systems

I joined in Jan 2020 with the ECE Distinguished Research Fellowship . At UIUC, I am exploring topics in Distributed Systems and Systems for ML advised by Prof. Indranil Gupta. Will update soon. Earlier in 2020, I contributed to a work in communication systems, published at MobiComm [link].

2016-17

Indian Regional Navigation System (IRNSS) Reciever Design

IIT-Bombay

When India completed the 7 satellite IRNSS in April 2016, I decided to build a receiver. I did it as my Master's Thesis with Prof. Madhav Desai, and built this. IRNSS, is a navigation system like the GPS (owned by the USA), except just for the Indian Subcontinent. I was amazed at the engineering behind GPS. By studying GPS, we built a similar reciever stack for IRNSS. We built an end-to-end system complete with an analog front end and demonstrated by calculating ranges to the satellities. This work won the Undergraduate Research Award (URA03).

2017-2019

Information Theory

IIT Bombay

I am amazed at how communication over invisible waves work. Wireless communication seems magical. I was lucky to find a mentor in Prof. Sibiraj Pillai who introduced me to wide variety of concepts in the field and in particular to Information Theory. We started to work on decentralized MIMO MAC Channel in 2017, which finally culminated in us obtaining close bounds for capacity of such channels. I continued working on it while working at Texas Instruments. This first-author work was published at ISIT 2019, Paris. [link]

2014-2015

Bio-Inspired Computing

IIT Bombay ISCAS

At IITB I was fortunate to work with Prof. Bipin Rajendran, and be introduced to the intriguing world of bio-computing. We built this charming bot that is controlled by 10 microcontoller neurons. This first-author work was demonstrated at ISCAS 2015, Lisbon [link]. I believe extracting the working principles of biological computing, just like we extracted the working principles of flight a century ago will be a defining problem of this century (I picked the analogy from Prof. Rajendran). Find some pictures and video here

Awards

2019

Young Innovator Award 2019

Texas Instruments
Young Innovator Award 2019

Awarded for most number of patent submissions with less than 3 years of industry experience.

2017

President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal

IIT Bombay
Young Innovator Award 2019

Awarded to most outstanding student in terms of general proficiency, excellence in academic performance, extra curricular activities and social services among all graduating students (1/2612 students). Cheif Guest at IIT-B Convocation 2017, Defence Minister of India Shri Manohar Parrikar presented the medal

Others

Tinkerers' Lab

IIT Bombay

I was the student head of Tinkerers' Lab (TL), alumni-funded maker-space at IIT Bombay. The TL movement has subsequently expanded to multiple IIT's. Here I've written why TL is an awesome idea. Below is a presentation I made to the Global Business Forum (GBF) about TL.

Students' Techhnical Activities Body

IIT Bombay

I served as the Overall Coordinator of Students' Technical Activities Body (STAB) at IIT Bombay. STAB is an umbrella body of all student-led tech activities ranging from electronics and coding to aeromodelling and astronomy

Receiving the 'Organizational Roll of Honour' from Dean of Student Affairs. Roll of Honour (at-most two recipients) is the highest award for student community leadership at IIT Bombay

Biking

Interested in long-distance biking trip? Let's plan one!

Biking along the Pacific Coast of Taiwan

Hobby-Tech

Some Freshmen Projects

Our wireless Robowars beast, Techfest 2012. We won the Engineering Excellence Award. And a gesture controlled toy-car wwe made (pre-DL days, used traditional image processing :p)