INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SPACE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

(Declared as Deemed to be University under section 3 of the UGC act 1956)

Thiruvananthapuram – 695547
IIST Ph.D. Programme – July 2024 Admissions
Syllabus for Online Screening Test

Section A: Questions based on Aptitude and class 12 Mathematics

Section B: The research area based. Detailed Syllabus for Section B are mentioned below.

Department of Aerospace Engineering

PAE01 - Aerodynamics, Heat transfer, Combustion and Fluid Mechanics (Experimental and
Computational)

Fluid Mechanics: Fluid Statics, conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy (integral and
1 differential form), control-volume analysis, dimensional analysis, solutions of viscous flow equations, laminar
boundary layer, elementary turbulent flow
Thermodynamics: Basic concepts, First and second law of thermodynamics, properties of pure substances,
thermodynamic relations, thermodynamic cycles, ideal gas mixtures, compressible flow through nozzle and
diffuser.
PAE02 - Design and analysis of Flight Dynamics and Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

For Aerospace Background: Drag polar, Steady glide, Steady level Flight, Steady climb & descent, Absolute
and Service ceiling; Coordinated Turn, V-n diagram; Static stability, Longitudinal stick fixed & free Neutral point,
Lateral - Directional stability; Dynamic stability, Six DOF equations of motion, Linearized equations, Stability and
control derivatives, Short Period, Long period, Roll mode, Dutch Roll, Spiral modes; Transfer Functions, Stability
2 Augmentation system.

For Mechanical Background: Engineering Mechanics: Free-body diagrams and equilibrium; trusses and
frames; virtual work; kinematics and dynamics of particles and of rigid bodies in plane motion; impulse and
momentum (linear and angular) and energy formulations, collisions. Vibrations: Free and forced vibration of
single degree of freedom systems, effect of damping; vibration isolation; resonance;
PAE03 - Industrial Engineering and Operations Research

Principles of Management - Industrial Engineering and Operations Management: Productivity, product design
and development, work system design, facility layout and design, forecasting, production planning and control:
aggregate planning, master production scheduling, MRP and sequencing and scheduling, assembly line
3 balancing, inventory management, quality management, push and pull production systems, group technology
and flexible manufactuing systems, just-in-time and lean manufacturing systems - logistics, distribution and
supply chain management - project management (PERT/CPM) - Operations Research: Linear programming,
duality and sensitivity analysis, transportation and assignment models, network flow models, queuing models,
dynamic programming, non-linear programming: unconstrained and constrained optimization, optimality
conditions and algorithms. Programming using C/C++ -

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 PAE04 - Precision Manufacturing
Engineering Materials and treatments (fundamental aspects, properties and selection) - Mechanics of Material
(Analysis of Stress, Strain and their Relationships-Analysis of Bending, Shear, torsion and combined stresses -
Mechanical behaviour of materials -Testing methodologies- Residual Stress and effects)- Fundamentals of
4 Machining and other Manufacturing Processes (Processes, Systems and thermo-mechanical aspects)- - Basics
of Manufacturing drawings and Metrology practices (fits/ tolerance, geometric tolerances, advances in
measurement strategies/ systems)- 3D printing and Rapid Prototyping - Fundamentals of Additive Manufacturing
(Design aspects, Raw materials, Processes and systems)- Computer Aided Design – Basics of Mechanisms
and Kinematic Analysis- Fundamentals of Machine Design & Robot mechanisms- Basics of Structural Dynamics
PAE05 - Aerodynamics, Heat transfer, Combustion and Fluid Mechanics (Experimental and
computational analysis)

Fluid Mechanics: Fluid Statics, conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy (integral and
5 differential form), control-volume analysis, dimensional analysis, solutions of viscous flow equations, laminar
boundary layer, elementary turbulent flow

Thermodynamics: Basic concepts, First and second law of thermodynamics, properties of pure substances,
thermodynamic relations, thermodynamic cycles, ideal gas mixtures, compressible flow through nozzle and
diffuser.
PAE06 - Design for Additive Manufacturing (with focus on robotic mechanisms / systems)
Engineering Materials and treatments (fundamental aspects, properties and selection) - Mechanics of Material
(Analysis of Stress, Strain and their Relationships-Analysis of Bending, Shear, torsion and combined stresses -
Mechanical behaviour of materials -Testing methodologies- Residual Stress and effects)- Fundamentals of
6 Machining and other Manufacturing Processes (Processes, Systems and thermo-mechanical aspects)- - Basics
of Manufacturing drawings and Metrology practices (fits/ tolerance, geometric tolerances, advances in
measurement strategies/ systems)- 3D printing and Rapid Prototyping - Fundamentals of Additive Manufacturing
(Design aspects, Raw materials, Processes and systems)- Computer Aided Design – Basics of Mechanisms
and Kinematic Analysis- Fundamentals of Machine Design & Robot mechanisms- Basics of Structural Dynamics
Department of Avionics
PAV01 - Control Systems, PAV02 - Control Systems, Deep space Navigation & PAV03 - Nonlinear
1 Dynamics and Complex Systems

Linear Algebra, Calculus, ODE, Probability and statistics

PAV04 - Wireless communication and Signal Processing

Signals and Systems - All transform and its properties Digital signal Processing- DFT and its properties,
filter design, Multirate signal processing, Probability and Random Processes: Probability axioms, conditional
probability, discrete and continuous Rvs-CDF, PMF, PDF, conditional PMF/PDF, expected value, variance,
functions of a RV, multiple random variables, joint CDF/PMF/PDF-independent/uncorrelated Rvs, sums of Rvs,
moment generating function, random sums of Rvs- The sample mean, laws of large numbers, central limit
2 theorem, convergence of sequence Rvs. Introduction to random processes(RP)- Mean and correlation of RP,
stationary, wide sense stationary and ergodic processes. RP as inputs to linear time invariant systems: power
spectral density, Gaussian processes as inputs to LTI systems, white Gaussian noise. Linear Algebra :- Vector
Spaces ,Properties of Vector Spaces, Subspaces, Span and Linear Independence, Bases, Dimension Inner-
Product Spaces - Inner Products, Norms, Orthonormal Bases, Orthogonal Projections -Null Spaces and Ranges-
Eigenvalues and Eigen vectors - SVD, EVD, rank of a matrix Digital Communication: - Signal space concepts-
Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure. Matched filter receiver, ISI, Pulse Shaping, Nyquist criterion for zero
ISI, Signaling with duobinary pulses, Eye diagram, Digital band pass modulation schemes.

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 PAV05 - Power Systems and Control

Transient and Steady-state analysis of LTI systems, Routh-Hurwitz and Nyquist criteria, Bode plots, Root loci,
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Lag, Lead and Lead-Lag compensators; P, PI and PID controllers; ideal voltage and current sources, dependent
sources, R, L, C, M elements; KCL, KVL, Node and Mesh analysis; Transient response of dc and ac networks,
sinusoidal steady-state analysis
PAV06 - Power Electronics and Control of Electric Drives

(i) Electric Network analysis- Transients in R-L, R-C, R-L-C circuits – Time domain and frequency domain
4 analysis. Active first order circuits using Op Amps.

(ii) Power Electronics – Basic DC to DC converters: Buck, Boost, Buck-Boost converters. Basic concepts of DC-
AC converters (iii) Elementary concepts of control systems.
PAV07 - Microwave and Antenna Engineering & PAV08 - RF and Microwave Engineering
5 Maxwell's equation, Boundary Conditions, Transmission Lines and Waveguides, Basic EM Theory, S-matrix,
Microwvae Passive components, Microwave Active circuits, Funadamentals of Antennas
PAV09 - Sensors, MEMS, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology
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Fundamentals of Semiconductor, carriers, Generation Recombinations, Transport Properties of
Semiconductors, PN Junction Diode, MOSFET
External Projects

EPAV01- Power Train for All-Electric HANSA 3-NG Technology Demonstration

10 (i) Electric Network analysis- Transients in R-L, R-C, R-L-C circuits – Time domain and frequency domain
analysis. Active first order circuits using Op Amps.

(ii) Power Electronics – Basic DC to DC converters: Buck, Boost, Buck-Boost converters. Basic concepts of DC-
AC converters (iii) Elementary concepts of control systems

EPAV02 - Design and Development of Low Power, Low Cost, High- Performance Gas Sensor Array for
Exhale Breath analyser: A Point-of- Care based Non- Invasive Early Detection and Prognosis of
Cardiovascular Diseases.
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Fundamentals of Semiconductor, carriers, Generation Recombinations, Transport Properties of
Semiconductors, PN Junction Diode, MOSFET
Department of Chemistry
PCH01- Nano materials/ functional materials/polymeric materials for energy/environmental/sensing /3D
printing applications
Candidates have to choose either one of the below-given areas based on their qualifications.
1
(During the application, the choice has to be indicated)

Chemical Engineering:

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 Fluid Mechanics - Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, transport properties, energy balance, equation of
continuity, equation of motion, friction factors, flow through pipeline systems, velocity profiles, flow meters,
pumps, elementary boundary layer theory, packed and fluidized beds, turbulent flow, velocity profile and
pressure drop.

Heat Transfer - Steady and unsteady heat conduction, convection, thermal boundary layer and heat transfer
coefficients, boiling, condensation and evaporation, types of heat exchangers and evaporators and their
process calculations

Mass transfer - Fick’s laws, molecular diffusion in fluids, mass transfer coefficients, film, penetration and
surface renewal theories, momentum, heat and mass transfer analogies

Chemical Reaction Engineering - Theories of reaction rate, kinetics of homogeneous reactions, interpretation
of kinetic data, single and multiple reactions in ideal reactors, kinetics of enzyme reactions, kinetics of
heterogeneous catalytic reactions, diffusion effects in catalysis, rate and performance equations for catalyst
deactivation.

Polymer Science and Technology:

Chemistry of polymers, Polymer characterization, Synthesis, manufacturing and properties. Polymer blends
and composites, Polymer rheology, Polymer processing, Polymer testing

Materials Science and Technology/Nanoscience and Technology:

Classification and Structure of Materials, Thermodynamics, Kinetics and Phase Transformations. Properties and
Applications of Materials, Characterization and Measurements of Properties, Processing of Materials,
Degradation of Materials Theory of nanomaterials, Synthesis and processing of nanomaterials, Functional
nanomaterials, Nano characterization of materials, Applications of nanomaterials
Department of Earth and Space Sciences
PES04 - High Resolution Geospatial Data Processing / Geospatial Artificial Intelligence & PES05
Geospatial analytics for coastal zone studies

Candidates have to answer either one of the syllabus based on their qualification

(During the application, the choice has to be indicated)

Remote Sensing:

(For Masters in Geoinformatics / Remote Sensing / GIS / Civil Engineering / Physics or equivalent: BE
1
Geoinformatics / Natural Resource Management)

1. Concepts of Remote Sensing: resolution, sensor, EM Spectra, spectral separability, spectral signatures,
multispectral, hyperspectral, microwave, LiDAR remote sensing.

2. Concepts of Photogrammetry: parallax, stereo model, orientation, collinearity and coplanarity, 6

aerotriangulation, orthophoto.

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 3. Digital Image Processing – Classification techniques, dimensionality reduction, spatial spectral filters, cross
validation techniques, accuracy assessment.

4. GIS: Projection and coordinate system, vector/raster analysis, digital elevation model, 3D visualization,
WebGIS.

5. Concepts of computer programming

Computer science:

(For Masters in Computer Science/Machine Learning/Information Technology, ECE/ Signal Processing/

Image Processing or equivalent BE /B.Tech Computer Science/Machine Learning/Information
Technology, ECE, Mathematics, Physics)

1. Linear Algebra: matrix operations, eigen values and eigenvectors, solution, space of system of equations

2. Probability: Fundamentals of probability, random variables, probability, distributions

3. Image Processing: image sampling, quantization, color models, image, enhancement techniques, image
compression, segmentation

4. Machine Learning: Classification techniques, cross validation techniques, performance measures,

dimensionality reduction methods, feature selection

5. Database and data structures: Basics of SQL, E-R models, SQL queries, data mining, data normalization,
trees, hashing, kD tree, Quad Tree

6. Concepts of computer programming

External Projects
EPES01 - An automated machine learning based pipeline for generation of 3D digital twin city models
and topographic digital database from Airborne LiDAR dataset: Case study of Thiruvananthapuram city

Candidates have to answer either one of the syllabus based on their qualification

(During the application, the choice has to be indicated)

2
Remote Sensing:

(For Masters in Geoinformatics /Remote Sensing /GIS / Civil Engineering / Physics or equivalent: BE

Geoinformatics/ Natural Resource Management)

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1. Concepts of Remote Sensing: resolution, sensor, EM Spectra, spectral separability, spectral

signatures, multispectral, hyperspectral, microwave, LiDAR remote sensing.

2. Concepts of Photogrammetry: parallax, stereo model, orientation, collinearity and coplanarity, 6

aerotriangulation, orthophoto.

3. Digital Image Processing – Classification techniques, dimensionality reduction, spatial spectral filters, cross
validation techniques, accuracy assessment.

4. GIS: Projection and coordinate system, vector/raster analysis, digital elevation model, 3D visualization,
WebGIS.

5. Concepts of computer programming

Computer science:

(For Masters in Computer Science /Machine Learning /Information Technology, ECE / Signal Processing/
Image Processing or equivalent BE / B.Tech Computer Science/ Machine Learning/ Information
Technology, ECE, Mathematics, Physics)

1. Linear Algebra: matrix operations, eigen values and eigenvectors, solution, space of system of equations

2. Probability: Fundamentals of probability, random variables, probability, distributions

3. Image Processing: image sampling, quantization, color models, image, enhancement techniques, image
compression, segmentation

4. Machine Learning: Classification techniques, cross validation techniques, performance measures,

dimensionality reduction methods, feature selection

5. Database and data structures: Basics of SQL, E-R models, SQL queries, data mining, data normalization,
trees, hashing, kD tree, Quad Tree

6. Concepts of computer
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
PHS02 - Operations and Supply Chain Management

Product Design and Development: Principles of product design, tolerance design; Quality and cost
considerations; Product life cycle; Standardization, simplification, diversification; Value engineering and
analysis; Concurrent engineering.
Work System Design: Taylor’s scientific management, Gilbreths’s contributions; Productivity – concepts and
measurements; Method study, Micro-motion study, Principles of motion economy; Work measurement-time
study, Work sampling, Ergonomics.
Operations Research: Linear programming, simplex method, transportation, assignment, network flow
models, simple queuing models, PERT and CPM.
Supply chain and Logistics Management: Building blocks of a supply chain network, Types of supply chains
and examples, Strategic, tactical, and operational decisions in supply chains, Supply chain performance
measures, Internet-enabled supply chains, supply chain integration, sustainability.

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 Department of Mathematics
PMA03 - Machine Learning

Linear Algebra: Vector spaces, subspaces, linear independence, inner product spaces, orthogonal basis,
conditional number, regularization techniques.

Matrices: Traces and determinants, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, matrix derivatives.

1 Probability: Fundamental axioms in probability, conditional probability, independence, random variables,

expectation, probability distributions.

Optimization Techniques: Maximization and minimization of functions, iterative methods.

Machine Learning: Classification, regression, clustering, cross-validation techniques, performance measures,

dimensionality reduction methods, feature selection.