The school subsequently charted out an independent course for its teaching and research focus, under Prof I G Sharma. Some areas of interest initiated by him were flight control simulation, guidance of aerospace vehicles, digital hardware and circuits, etc.

At around the same time, Prof. B.L. Deekshatulu started the areas of Remote Sensing and Image Processing. Notable work during his time include the development of an inhouse drum scanner and flyspot scanner. Some of the people who were involved in this, namely Mr T.Shankar and Mr Mega Vennan, are still with us.

After the acquisition of a PDP-11 digital computer and AD-5 analog computer, the school established a Hybrid Computing Laboratory headed by Prof. D.K Subramanian. Prof L.M. Patnaik made use of this laboratory to carry out simulation of complex real time systems.

A not-so-well-known fact about the School of Automation is its association with Wipro-Infotech. In 1979, Victor Jayakaran, an ME student along with his colleague from Electrical engineering worked on the first project of Wipro Infotech in one of the labs of the School.

In the year 1985, the School of Automation was renamed as the department of Computer Science and Automation.  In the same year an ME program in system sciences was started in conjunction with the Electrical Department.

In the 90s, under the chairmanship of Prof. N. Vishwanadham, modern facilities like email and networks were set up.

The Department celebrated its Silver Jubilee in 1993. A workshop was organized wherein eminent researchers from India and abroad presented their work.

A fact that drew attention of the whole country in 2000 was the Simputer – a powerful handheld computer – developed by faculty from the department. This led to the establishment of Picopeta Simputers and Strand Genomics – the first academic entrepreneurial venture in India.