Research

Research interests are directed primarily towards Bio-­robotics, Bio-medical engineering and Computational neuroscience research in a variety of interrelated areas, 

• • Sensor networks, Active sensing and Sensory motor integration

  • Bio-inspired robotics and Bio-medical engineering

  • Machine Learning & Artificial neural networks (ESNs)

  • Neuromechanical simulations for motor control

  • Investigating control algorithms to be used in robotic devices for stepping, swimming and crawling

  • Dynamic systems & Mathematical modeling

  • Signal and Image processing, Computer Vision

  • Human Computer Interactions/ Data acquisition and Computer Interfacing

• • Dr. R.D.B. Ranaweera, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Peradeniya, SRI LANKA

  • Dr. H.A.D.S. Buddika,  Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, SRI LANKA

  • Dr. Gayan Bowatte, Department of Basic Science, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, SRI LANKA

  • Prof. Gamini Dissanayake, Director CAS, UTS Robotics, University of Technology, Sydney, AUSTRALIA

  • Prof. Lilantha Samaranayake, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Peradeniya, SRI LANKA

  • Dr. Tom Matheson, Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavior,  University of Leicester, UNITED KINGDOM

  • Prof. Volker Durr, Department of Biological Cybernetics, University of Bielefeld, GERMANY

  • Prof. Auke Ijspeert, BioROB, EPFL, Laussane, SWITZERLAND

  • Prof. Jean-Marie Cabelguen, Centre de Recherche, INSERM U862, Institut F. Magandie, Bordeaux Cedux, FRANCE

  • Prof. Sten Grillner, Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SWEDEN

  • Prof. Keir Pearson, Department of Physiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, CANADA

  • Prof. Örjan Ekeberg, Department of Computational Biology, CSC, KTH, Stockholm, SWEDEN

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• • Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 

  • Member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

  • Member of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society

  • Member of the Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS)

  • Associate Member of The Institute of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL)

  • Associate Member of the Engineering Council, Sri Lanka (ECSL)

  • Member of German Neuroscience Society and FENS Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (2014-2016)

  • Member of CITEC (2014-2016)

  • EU-FP7 project EMICAB 

  • EU-FP7 project LAMPETRA

  • Member of Stockholm Brain Institute (SBI), Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden (2008-2012)

  • Member of Translational Sensorimotor Network (TSN) in Sweden (2007-2012)

• Reviewer of the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, Publication of IEEE-RAS and IEEE-CIS, ISSN 2379-8920

• Reviewer, 11th IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technological Conference (HTC2023), Marwadi University, Rajkot, India

• Member of the Technical Program Committee, Reviewer  ICIIS2023, ICIIS2021, ICIIS2019, ICIIS2017, ICIIS2015, DEEE, UOP

• Reviewer, WIESymp 2021, International Women in Engineering Symposium, IEEE-WIE Sri Lanka Section, November 2021

• Reviewer, 3rd Young Scientists Conference on Multidisciplinary Research (YSCMR) 2021, National Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka

• Resource Person, Tutorial on "Brain-inspired computing, neural control mechanisms and biomedical instrumentation with integrated electronics", IEEE ICIIS2019, Faculty of Engineering, UOP

• Reviewer, 7th IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technological Conference (HTC2019), Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

• Reviewer, 6th International Conference on Multidisciplinary Approaches (iCMA2019),  Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

• Member of the Technical Program Committee (Reviewer), 1st International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent systems (ICORIS-2019), Bali, Indunesia

• Track Chair, Member of the Technical Program Committee, 6th IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technological Conference (HTC2018), SLIIT, Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Track Chair, Biomedical Engineering, IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2017), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Reviewer of the Journal of National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka, E-ISSN 2362-0161, NSF, Colombo, https://jnsfsl.sljol.info/

• Reviewer of the Journal of Control and Intelligent Systems, ISSN 1480-1752, ACTA Press, http://www.actapress.com/Content_of_Journal.aspx?journalid=232 (2016- To date)

• Reviewer of the International Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics (JCND), ISSN 1555-1415, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Digital Collection, http://computationalnonlinear.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org (2015- To date)

• Reviewer of the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems (IJARS), Online ISSN 1729-8814, http://www.intechopen.com/journals/articles/international_journal_of_advanced_robotic_systems (2014- To date) 

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• Session Chair, Biomedical Engineering and Instrumentation, 17th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2023), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-Chair, Control, Robotics and Automation, 17th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2023), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Chair, Artificial Intelligence, Signal and Image Processing, 16th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2021), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-chair, Biomedical Engineering and Biomechanics, 16th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2021), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-chair, Robotics, Control and Automation, 14th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2019), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-chair, Signal Processing, 14th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2019), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Chair, Biomedical Engineering, 6th IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technological Conference (HTC2018), SLIIT, Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-chair, Robotics, Control and Automation- Advances in Field Robotics, 12th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2017), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Session Co-chair, Robotics, Control and Automation- Advances in Robot Control, 12th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS2017), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

• Digital Transformation of Asian Higher Education: DIGITAsia- co-funded by the Erasmus+Programme of the European Union

  • • Team member, UOP, Sri Lanka, Lead Technical Personnel (LTP): Prof. Sakunthala Y. Ekanayake, (UOP, Sri Lanka) (2024/2027)

    • Project Director (PD): Prof. Igor Balaban, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb

• Building Capacity to Improve Air Quality in South Asia: Reducing PM2.5 Through Low-Cost Sensor Network Driven Policy Decisions

  • • Team member, UOP, Sri Lanka, Lead Technical Personnel (LTP): Dr. Gayan Bowatte, (UOP, Sri Lanka), Prof. Meththika Vithanage (University of Sri Jayawardenapura, Sri Lanka) (2021/2024)

    • Project Director (PD): Prof. Mike Bergin, Duke University, USA

•  Collaborator: University Research Grant (URG/2022/33/E)

  • • Principal Investigator: Dr. H.A.D.S. Buddika,  Dept. of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

    • "Creating Digital Twins of Ancient Stupa Structures to Study Structural Defects and Suggest Remedial Measures" (05/2022-05/2024)

• NVIDIA Applied Research Accelerator Program

  • • Team member, UOP, Sri Lanka; "Elephant – Train Collision Prevention System", PI: Prof. B.G.L.T. Samaranayake (UOP, Sri Lanka), Prof. Gamini Dissanayake (University of Technology, Sydney) (2021/2022)

• Medical Ventilator Design and Repair project

  • • Team Member, Faculty of Engineering; "Peradeniya Biomedical Engineering Research Group (PBER)", In collaboration with Faculty of Medicine, UOP, Sri Lanka

• IEEE RAS-SIGHT project

  • •  Team member, UOP, Sri Lanka; "Elephant – Train Collision Prevention System", IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology, PI: Dr. B.G.L.T. Samaranayake, Prof. K.M. Liyanage (UOP, Sri Lanka), Prof. Gamini Dissanayake (University of Technology, Sydney - UTS) (2019-2020)

• University Research Grant (URG/2017/25/E), DEEE, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (12/2017-12/2019)

  • • "Visual servoing for mobile robotic manipulators", Collaborator: Dr. B.G.L.T. Samaranayake

• CITEC (EXC 277) Grant, Cognitive Interaction Technology Center of Excellence, University of Bielefeld, Germany (08/2014- 07/2016)

  • • "Sensory coupled CPG network for adaptive control of active touch", PI: Prof. Volker Durr

• EU-FP7 project EMICAB 

  • • Team member, University of Bielefeld, Germany; "Embodied Motion Intelligence for Cognitive, Autonomous Robots"- An EU-funded project within FP7-ICT Cognitive Systems and Robotics, Grant 270182 (2011-2014)

• EU-FP7 project LAMPETRA

  • • Team member, KTH, Sweden; "Life-like Artefacts for Motor-Postural Experiments and development of new control Technologies inspired by Rapid Animal locomotion"-  Three-year collaborative project and has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, FP7: Theme ICT-2007.8.3 - FET proactive 3, Bio-ICT Convergence (2008- 2011)

• PhD: Structural Corrosion Detection by High-Resolution Image Processing and Deep Learning, Egodawela SMKSCB (2021- to-date)

  • • Co-supervisors: Dr. Samith Buddika HAD, Dr. Dhammika AJ, UOP,  SRI LANKA

    • Co-supervisors: Dr. Mojtaba Mahmoodian, Dr. Amirali K. Gostar, RMIT, AUSTRALIA

• MPhil: Visual Servoing for Mobile Robotic Manipualtors, Perera MSP (2021- to-date)

  • •  Co-supervisor: Prof. Samaranayake BGLT

• MSc: Dynamic Simulation of Insect head-antennal system for movement control, Samarasena KSB (2018)

  • • Co-supervisor: Dr. Ekanayake MPB

• DD3009: Embodied Cognition, CSC, KTH

  • • Project proposal: Implanting DBS electrodes in cat brain-stem and basal ganglia – an embedded approach

• FEL3500: Introduction to Model Order Reduction, EE, KTH

  • • Project: Designing digital filters by model order reduction techniques [Pdf]

• DD2396: Bioinformatics, CSC, KTH

  • • Project: The sense of taste in some vertebrates

• Reading course on Basal Ganglia and Decision making, CB, KTH

• Reading course on Computational Modeling, Stockholm Brain Institute (SBI), Stockholm

• DD2435: Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems, CSC, KTH

  • • Seminar on a scientific paper: Dendritic spike initiation in GP neurons

• DN2258: Introduction to High Performance Computing, Parallel Computing Center, KTH, Stockholm

  • • Project: Parallelization of computations in solving two dimensional steady state heat equation using conjugate gradient method [Pdf]

• QAL103: Neuroscience Part - I: From ion channels to behavior, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm

  • • Seminar on a scientific paper; Respiratory rhythm: An emergent network property

• 2D5234: Numerical Solutions for ODE/DAE, NADA, KTH

• DD2422: Image Analysis and Computer Vision, CSC, KTH

• DD2433: Artificial Neural Networks - Advanced Course, CSC

  • • Project: Mapping from EMG signals to joint angles in walking cats using neural networks (MLP/BP) and support vector machines (SVM) [Pdf]

• DD2432: Artificial Neural Networks and Other Learning Systems, CSC

• DD2431: Machine Learning, CSC

• DN2225: Numerical Solutions for Differential Equations - I, NADA

  • • Project: Solving heat transfer problem with differing materials [Pdf]