Kshitij Anand

Irvine, USA

• PhD Candidate, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering — GPA 3.901/4.0
• Specialization: Fluid Dynamics

Kharagpur, India

• Integrated B.Tech. & M.Tech. in Aerospace Engineering — Core GPA 9.40/10
• Minor in Computer Science & Engineering — Additional GPA 8.5/10
• Micro-specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Applications

Irvine, USA · Supervisor: Prof. Haithem E. Taha

• Studying fluid dynamics through the lens of analytical mechanics, formulating the solution of incompressible (inviscid and viscous, steady and unsteady) flow problems as optimization problems.
• Developed a toolbox based on Theodorsen’s conformal mapping approach and the Principle of Minimum Pressure Gradient to simulate steady ideal flows independently of the Kutta condition.
• Currently developing the Variational Projection of Navier-Stokes (VPNS) toolbox for simulating incompressible viscous flows, computing the temporal evolution of the flow within an optimization framework.
• Conceptual interests: differential equations and geometry, topology, numerical methods, fluid dynamics, dynamics and controls, numerical linear algebra, and efficient algorithms and data structures for sparse, banded and Toeplitz matrices (mostly in C and C++).

Irvine, USA

• MAE 108 with Prof. Yun Wang (Fall 2024) — laboratory course introducing undergraduates to mechanical subsystems through heat transfer: conductivity and volumetric measurements, pipe flows, power plant tours, wind tunnel force measurements, Otto and Diesel cycles, and refrigeration.
• MAE 175 with Prof. Haithem E. Taha (Winter 2025) — theoretical undergraduate course on the dynamics and stability of airplanes, including an introduction to stability augmentation via linear feedback control.

Kharagpur, India · Supervisor: Prof. Aditya Bandopadhyay

• Project: modularized manufacturing of a fixed-wing UAV for surveillance and remote monitoring.
• Performed conceptual and detailed design of a manually controlled fixed-wing (T-tail) UAV, prototyped from modular parts in 3D-printed PLA, wood and carbon composite.
• The UAV carries an onboard camera and an STM PMod-NAV nine-axis board to log flight path data, aimed at a control effectiveness study.
• Automatic control planned via the Pixhawk PX4 autopilot in a ROS–MAVLink–QGroundControl environment, targeting repeated sorties over a pre-designated flight path.

Kharagpur, India · Supervisor: Prof. Sunil Manohar Dash

• Master’s thesis: a systematic numerical study of the unsteady aerodynamics of tandem insect wings subject to a novel modified form of the Eldredge function.
• CFD study (ANSYS Fluent) testing the validity of, and improvements needed in, the 2D aerodynamic force model of van Veen et al. (2022) for tandem flapping insect wings in 2D and 3D.
• Dynamic and overset meshing used together to improve accuracy and reduce computation time, with a PISO algorithm whose neighbour-skewness correction is adjusted by the dynamic meshing parameters.
• Derived a constant term dependent on angular velocity to account for forewing–hindwing vortex interactions; spanwise vortex shedding and added-mass effects were found to contribute under 2% of time-averaged lift and thrust for the input kinematics used, and were neglected.

Munich, Germany · Supervisor: Prof. Sophie F. Armanini

• Project: dynamic modelling of a heave-stroke-pitch actuated FWMAV with independent contralateral wings.
• 3D CFD simulations for a novel optimized kinematic profile — modified from the Eldredge function to incorporate advance ratios for stroke and heave relative to pitch — for tandem dragonfly wings, to derive an aerodynamic force model.
• Developed a mechanical model of a tandem FWMAV with an independent actuation mechanism for heave-stroke and pitch.
• Dynamic modelling via a Lagrange–Hamiltonian formulation, for use in stability analysis.

Kharagpur, India · Supervisor: Prof. Sunil Manohar Dash

• Bachelor’s thesis: investigation of rotational effects in flapping wings.
• Examined and mathematically modelled (ANSYS Fluent) the rotational contribution to aerodynamic forces on stroking, pitching, and combined stroking-pitching 2D and 3D rectangular plates, at aspect ratios, Reynolds numbers and reduced frequencies characteristic of dragonfly flight.

Calgary, Canada · Supervisor: Prof. Alejandro Ramirez-Serrano

• Project: conceptual design of a highly transitional and maneuverable UAV.
• Designed a PID controller for flight mode transition, minimizing vertical height loss.
• Proposed the conceptual design of the internal structure, wings, winglets and landing gear for a transitional UAV, based on a market survey and general UAV sizing.
• Produced the detailed mechanical design of the front and rear landing gears, guided by simulated stress analysis and force response analysis.

Kharagpur, India

• Embedded and control systems design mentor.
• Developed in-house mobile robot projects — line following, obstacle detection, light detection and following — while guiding and training first-year students.
• Focused on 3D printing, mechanical design, and implementing controllers on Arduino and Raspberry Pi development boards.

Kolkata, India

• National Initiative on Undergraduate Sciences fellow, appointed by HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai.
• Project: quantum image representation and encryption.
• Implemented a secure framework for transferring greyscale images over a quantum computer network using affine transforms and logistic-map-based keys.

Course instructor: Prof. Srinibas Karmakar, IIT Kharagpur

Surveyed available pintle injectors to estimate the pintle length and swirl velocity required for the target thrust, then ran multiphase (LOx and petrol) CFD simulations comparing three candidate designs.

Course instructor: Prof. Soumyajit Dey, IIT Kharagpur

For a High-Performance Computing term project, implemented the batched Cholesky decomposition of Gates et al. in CUDA and C++, validating the experimental results against the published findings.

Course instructor: Prof. Sandeep Saha, IIT Kharagpur

Surveyed experimental and simulation methods for rotor downwash on fixed wings (e.g. the Bell V-22 Osprey) to fix parameters such as rotor position, distance from the wing, and rotor speed against inclination, then simulated the resulting aerodynamic forces.

Course instructor: Prof. Sandeep Saha, IIT Kharagpur

Built an 8-foot open-suction wind tunnel with a 1 ft × 1 ft × 3 ft test section at home during COVID lockdowns, with a settling chamber, pitot tube, and a Raspberry Pi data acquisition system. 3D-printed NACA 0012 and 2412 aerofoils were used to verify accuracy: maximum averaged error was 11% in C_L and 8% in C_D.

Graduate

Fluid Dynamics

Incompressible Inviscid Flows · Viscous Incompressible Flows · Compressible Flows

Dynamics & Controls

Linear Systems Theory · Analytical Mechanics and Dynamics

Math / CS

Differential Equations and Perturbation Methods · Advanced C · Advanced C++

Undergraduate

Fluids / Aerodynamics / CFD

Introductory Aerodynamics · Low-Speed Aerodynamics · High-Speed Aerodynamics · Viscous Flow Theory · Computational Fluid Dynamics · Advanced Fluid Mechanics

Controls / Mechanics / Robotics

Introduction to Flight Vehicle Controls · Automatic Control of Aircraft · Linear Systems and Control · Introduction to Flight Mechanics · Flight Dynamics and Stability · Aircraft Design and Optimization · Embedded Sensing, Actuation, Interfacing and Control

CS / Math / AI

Algorithms and Data Structures (C++) · Image Processing · High-Performance Computing · Machine Learning · Artificial Intelligence and its Applications · Deep Learning Foundations and Applications · Linear Algebra for AI & ML · Single and Multivariable Calculus · Linear Algebra · Vector Calculus

Built research morale among undergraduates by organizing workshops and interactive sessions with senior undergraduate and graduate students.

Responsible for publishing the annual magazine of IIT Kharagpur, and for running meetups and performance events for literary enthusiasts at the institute.