Patent analytics for sustainable transitions

Machine learning on patents, publications and policy documents to map technology landscapes in maritime, water, IoT and electric vehicles.

Patents and research papers record where technology is heading years before products reach the market. This line of work uses topic modeling, clustering, citation networks and, more recently, large language models to read these documents at scale, and to ask how technology and policy shape each other.

Technology landscapes

  • Low-carbon shipping. Patent landscapes and the essential technical standards that enable low-carbon maritime operations (Galdelli et al., 2026).
  • IoT for the environment. A review of academic and patent progress on Internet of Things technologies for environmental solutions (Govindarajan et al., 2025).
  • Wastewater. Mapping European innovation and policy landscapes for sustainable wastewater management using deep learning (Narang et al., 2026). I was the first author.

Electric vehicles

  • Technological capacity. A large-scale, machine learning-driven analysis of technological capacity in the EV industry, presented at the Technological Forecasting and Social Change Paper Development Workshop 2025 (Govindarajan & Narang, 2025).
  • Battery recycling policy. A text mining assessment of how industrial policy and technological progress interact in EV battery recycling (Govindarajan et al., 2026).
Left: unsupervised clustering of patents, validated with CPC classes. Right: keyword co-occurrence network for technology forecasting.

References

2026

  1. JMET
    Patent landscapes and essential technical standards enabling low-carbon maritime operations
    Alessandro Galdelli, Gagan Narang, Adriano Mancini, and 2 more authors
    Journal of Marine Engineering & Technology, 2026
    DOI
    1 Google Scholar citations
  2. Chapter
    Mapping European innovation and policy landscapes using deep learning: Technologies for sustainable wastewater management
    Gagan Narang, Alessandro Galdelli, Paolo Sospiro, and 2 more authors
    In Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Removal of Emerging Contaminants from Wastewater, 2026
    2 Google Scholar citations
  3. CSCWD
    An Interaction Assessment of Industrial Policy and Technological Progress on Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling: A Text Mining Approach
    Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, Yuecheng Hong, Gagan Narang, and 2 more authors
    In 2026 29th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), 2026
    DOI
    0 Google Scholar citations

2025

  1. Technologies
    A Review of Academic and Patent Progress on Internet of Things (IoT) Technologies for Enhanced Environmental Solutions
    Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, Chuyi Zhang, Rakesh D. Raut, and 2 more authors
    Technologies, 2025
    DOI
    13 Google Scholar citations
  2. TFSC PDW
    Understanding technological capacity in the EV industry: A large-scale machine learning-driven data analysis and strategic implications
    U. H. Govindarajan, and G. Narang
    2025
    Taiwan