INEXT Lab

Delighted to share that four research papers from iNEXT Lab have been accepted at the 20th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems (IEEE ANTS 2026), to be held at IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, India.

The accepted works span emerging areas including Quantum Machine Learning, Blockchain and Privacy, UAV Swarm Intelligence, and Edge AI for Healthcare.

Paper 1: “SARQ: Symmetry Aware Rao-Blackwellized Quantum Estimators for Reinforcement Learning”

Bhavik Netam, Prince Kumar, Arijit Roy, and Om Jee Pandey

- This work develops symmetry-aware quantum estimators using Rao-Blackwellization to improve the efficiency and reliability of reinforcement learning.

Paper 2: “In-Block: Enabling Privacy in Usage-based Insurance with Blockchain”

Nikhil Sharma, Prince Kumar, Yogachandran Rahulamathavan, and Arijit Roy

- This work proposes a blockchain-based framework for enabling secure and privacy-preserving usage-based insurance.

Paper 3: “UpdraftNet: Cooperative Urban Updraft Mapping for Energy-Aware UAV Delivery Swarms”

Karan Yadav, Prajjwal Patel, Adarsh Narayan, and Arijit Roy

- This work introduces cooperative urban updraft mapping to help UAV delivery swarms reduce energy consumption and improve flight efficiency.

Paper 4: "LightDep: Knowledge-Distilled Multimodal Depression Screening for Mobile and Edge Devices"



Devansh Pandey, Prateek Goyal, Amit Vishwakarma, Arijit Roy and Om Jee Pandey

- The paper focuses on lightweight multimodal intelligence for mobile and edge platforms, leveraging knowledge distillation to make computationally demanding screening models more suitable for resource-constrained devices. This research was led by Dr. Om Jee Pandey, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, in collaboration with the iNEXT Research Group.

Congratulations to all the authors and collaborators from iNEXT Lab for their dedicated efforts and valuable research contributions. Looking forward to presenting these works and engaging with the research community at IEEE ANTS 2026.

Presentation of our paper, “HFSDN: Hierarchical Federated Learning Based SDN Architecture for Fault-Tolerance,” at the 37th IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (IEEE PIMRC 2026), held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore, September 1–4, 2026.

Authors:

Aayush Srivastava (M.Tech., 2025), Prince Kumar (Ph.D., 2026), and Dr. Arijit Roy.

The work proposes HFSDN, a three-tier hierarchical Federated Learning architecture in which multiple SDN controllers act as intermediate aggregation nodes between edge devices and the cloud. The approach aims to reduce communication overhead, eliminate dependence on a single aggregation point, and improve scalability and fault tolerance in large-scale and unreliable edge networks.

Citation may be used as:

A. Srivastava, P. Kumar, and A. Roy, “HFSDN: Hierarchical Federated Learning Based SDN Architecture for Fault-Tolerance,” in Proc. of the 37th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (IEEE PIMRC), Singapore, Sept. 1–4, 2026.

🎉 Celebrating Another Milestone from iNEXT Lab!

We are delighted to congratulate Sayan Datta on his appointment as Assistant Professor (Grade I) at KIIT – Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, School of Computer Engineering.

This achievement is a proud moment for the iNEXT Lab family and reflects the dedication, perseverance, and academic excellence fostered within our research group.

We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Sayan and express our sincere appreciation to our Professor, Dr. Arijit Roy, whose exceptional mentorship, guidance, and unwavering support have been instrumental in shaping the careers of researchers and students at iNEXT Lab. His commitment to nurturing talent and promoting excellence in research continues to inspire all of us.

We wish Sayan continued success in his academic journey and are confident that he will make significant contributions to teaching, research, and innovation.

Congratulations once again, and best wishes for this exciting new chapter!