Dr R Lal Tummala, Professor and chair, Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego state University visited Department of Electronics and communication Engineering to address the students on 'Higher education and Research' on 24.1.2018. His scientific contributions include 28 publications and projects in the areas of Control, Robotics and Embedded System.

He talked about one of his projects which aim at saving civilians after natural disaster/ building collapse through robots. The concept was inspired by lizards to create robots that can track and locate people who are trapped under the debris after natural disaster/ building collapse. The robots can crawl over standing walls and on ceilings without falling off. His motive is to manufacture robots and contribute to the Ministry of Defense to use in the war situations and reduce human death toll.