Shalutha Rajapakshe

I'm


I’m a Doctoral Student at the Electrical Engineering Doctoral School of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, and conduct my research work as a Research Assistant at the Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland, in the area of Human-Robot Interaction under the supervision of Dr. Emmanuel Senft.


I obtained my Bachelor Degree from the Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering of the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka with a First Class Honours.


Other-than the robotics life, I love being an Entrepreneur and has been already Co-founded two startups IXD Labs and CircuitBreakers Robotics.


I was a student researcher at CSIRO Data61 Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group, Brisbane, Australia during the period of Oct 2020 to May 2021 where I have worked with Mr. Paul Flick (Principal Engineer/ Operations lead at CSIRO Data61 Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group) and Mr. Nicholas Panitz (Mechatronics Engineer at CSIRO Data61 Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group).


My work has been recognised at International Events such as IEEE Region 10 Robotics Competition in 2022, IAS CMD Student Robotics Demonstration Contest in 2021 , Techfest | IIT Bombay in 2020, and BR4IN.IO International Brain Computer Designers Hackathon in 2020. Furthermore I have achieved top places in several National Robotics Contests including Sri Lankan Robotics Challenge in 2019, organised by the University of Moratuwa.


Before I started my undergraduate degree, I studied at D.S.Senanayake College, Colombo 07 and served as the Deputy Head Prefect for the years 2016/2017. Furthermore I have been awarded the Most Outstanding Student Award for the year 2016.

I have studied at,

















University of Moratuwa

















EPFL



I have worked at,

















Idiap

















Analog Inference

















CSIRO Data61

















CircuitBreakers Robotics

















IXD Labs (PVT) LTD

















theBRIC

News

Attended 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI'24) in Boulder, USA and presented my short paper.

Our short paper titled "Synergizing Natural Language Towards Enhanced Shared Autonomy" has been accepted for publication at the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI'24).

Started my PhD at EPFL and Idiap, Switzerland.

Presented our final year research project at the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC 2023).

Our final year research has been accepted for publication at the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC 2023).

Our project "BRAINEOCARE" won the Best Poster Presentation Award at the Association of Sri Lankan Neurologists 16th Annual Congress (ASNAC 2023).

Our final year project emerged as the Champion of the IEEE Region 10 Robotics Competition 2022, under the category of innovative robots development for healthcare and humanitarian applications. I visited Bangkok, Thailand, on the 17th and 18th December 2022, representing my country for the grand finals and successfully conducted the demo and presentation of the project.

Our final year project has been selected to the grand finals of IEEE Region 10 Robotics Competition 2022 under the category of innovative robots development for healthcare and humanitarian applications.

Joined Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering Department of University of Moratuwa as a Visiting Instructor. Responsible for instructing and marking lab tutorials and practicals for undergraduates.

Joined Analog Inference as an AI & ML Engineer. Working under the supervision of Dr. Yasantha Rajakarunanayake on Machine Learning / Deep learning based model creation, simplification, and optimization for the purpose of deploying on a customized analog chip.

Successfully completed our Final Year Project "Collaborative Ground - Aerial Multi - Robot System for Disaster Response Missions". The project was done in collaboration with the CSIRO's Data61 Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group and the main supervision was done by Dr. Peshala Jayasekara (UoM), Dr. Navinda Kottege (CSIRO), Eng. Paul Flick (CSIRO), and mentored by Mr. Bhanuka Silva (UoM). Watch our project and the six legged Rex in action from here

Presented our paper titled “Design and Development of a Research-Oriented Low-Cost Robotics Platform with a Novel Dynamic Global Path Planning Approach” at the 8th 8th IEEE International Conference on Control, Automation, and Robotics (ICCAR) .

Our paper titled “Design and Development of a Research-Oriented Low-Cost Robotics Platform with a Novel Dynamic Global Path Planning Approach” has been accepted for publication at the 8th IEEE International Conference on Control, Automation, and Robotics (ICCAR) .

Our team "CircuitBreakers" emerged as the World Champions of IAS CMD Student Robotics Demonstration Contest. This marks the first time a team, representing Sri Lanka, emerged as the "Global Champions" of this competition. The aim of the competition was to develop a robotics application that can be used in an industrial environmrnt. Our team was able to develop a low-cost robotics solution for warehouse inspection, equipped with a uniquely designed manipulator to perform inspection tasks in industrial environments.

Successfully conducted the ENTC Training Program for Microcontrollers. In this program I worked as a visiting lecturer covering the programming of Microcontrollers part.

Successfully completed the first "Little Engineer" program.

Initiated the "Little Engineer" program.

Successfully conducted the 4 week Embedded Systems Workshop for Beginners organized by the IEEE SL Inspire. In this workshop I conducted the Programming with Arduino and C++ and Basics of PCB design verification and fabrication sections. You can find the workshop recordings using this link.

Conducted a session on "Approach to a good hardware design" at IEEE EMBS International Student Conference 2021 as a Researcher of theBRIC.

Our team "CircuitBreakers" emerged as the 2nd Runners-up in the first ever Virtual International Micromouse Competition organized along with Techfest | IIT Bombay 2020; Asia's largest Science and Technology Festival in its 24th edition.

Our team "BrainTrain" emerged as the Intheon Winner of the BR4IN.IO International Brain Computer Designers Hackathon at IEEE SMC Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society in Toronto.

Joined theBRIC as a Researcher.

Co-Founded IXD Labs as my second Startup.

Our team "CircuitBreakers" emerged as the 2nd Runners-up at the Xbotix Robotics Competition organized by the University of Ruhuna

Our team "CircuitBreakers" won the Silver Award and Best Robot Design Award at the Sri Lankan Robotics Challenge organised by the University of Moratuwa. You can watch our robots' performance using this link.

Our team "CircuitBreakers" emerged as the 2nd Runners-up at the Robot Design and Competition organised as a partial requirement for the module EN2532. You can watch our robot's performance using this link.

Co-Founded CircuitBreakers Robotics as my first Startup.

Skills

ROS 90%
C++ 85%
Algorithms 80%
Python 90%
Matlab 70%
Solidworks80%

Hobbies

I’m a passionate music lover and have been actively engaged in so many music-related activities since my school days. I was popular among my friends as a singer and took part in many events and concerts as a singer. Also I play violin and was in two of the main orchestras during my school and university time.