Shirantha Welikala

Welcome to My Website!

Hello everyone!

I am Shirantha Welikala, a tenure-track assistant professor (I joined in Fall 2023) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA.

I am looking for motivated Ph.D. students for Fall 2023 and beyond. If you are interested in developing solutions to critical challenges arising in next-generation interconnected (multi-agent/networked) systems, consider emailing me at swelikal@stevens.edu and applying to Stevens Ph.D. Programs: Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.

Moreover, in coming Fall 2024, at Stevens, I will teach the course EE 602: Analytical Methods in Electrical Engineering. This course can be considered a hybrid of graduate-level linear algebra and linear systems courses - discussed using numerous examples taken from cutting-edge electrical and computer engineering applications like control systems, networked systems, and deep learning. If you are a Stevens graduate student, consider taking the course!

Some Recent News

Two papers, "Performance-Guaranteed Solutions for Multi-Agent Optimal Coverage Problems using Submodularity, Curvature, and Greedy Algorithms" and "Dissipativity-Based Decentralized Control and Topology Co-Design for Vehicular Platoons With Disturbance String Stability," have been accepted for presentation at the 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Milan, Italy, (December) 2024.
A paper titled "A Decentralized Control Synthesis Approach for Networked Systems With Arbitrary Interconnections" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2024.
A paper titled "Decentralized and Compositional Interconnection Topology Synthesis for Linear Networked Systems" was presented at the 31st Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation held in Limassol, Cyprus, 2023.
Two papers titled "Non-Linear Networked Systems Analysis and Synthesis using Dissipativity Theory" and "Distributed Adaptive Backstepping Control for Vehicular Platoons with Mismatched Disturbances Using Vector String Stability" were presented at the American Control Conference held in San Diego, CA, USA, 2023.
A paper published in the Automatica Journal titled "A New Performance Bound for Submodular Maximization Problems and Its Application to Multi-Agent Optimal Coverage Problems" has been selected as the Editor's Choice in its Volume 144, 2022.
A paper titled "On-line Estimation of Stability and Passivity Metrics" was presented at the 61st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control held in Cancún, Mexico, 2022.
A paper titled "A Generalized Distributed Analysis and Control Synthesis Approach for Networked Systems with Arbitrary Interconnections" was presented at the 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation held in Athens, Greece, 2022. This paper won the best paper award!
Selected as a Rising Star in Cyber-Physical Systems to participate in the CPS Rising Stars Workshop, held in the University of Virginia, VA, USA, 2022.
A paper titled "Robust Approximate Simulation for Hierarchical Control of Piecewise Affine Systems under Bounded Disturbances" was presented at the American Control Conference held in Atlanta, GA, USA, 2022.

Biography

I was formally a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, USA (2021-2023). My post-doctoral research was on developing analysis, control synthesis and topology design techniques that are efficient, decentralized and compositional for large-scale networked systems using dissipativity theory. The main application domains where this research is being used are in smart-grid, supply chain systems and vehicular platoons. My current supervisors are Prof. Hai Lin and Prof. Panos J. Antsaklis.

I got my Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the Systems Engineering Division at Boston University, Brookline, MA, USA (2021). My doctoral research was on developing computationally efficient techniques to overcome the issue of local optima that arises in multi-agent optimization and control problems. During this research, a particular focus was given to develop distributed solutions for multi-agent coverage control, persistent monitoring, and distributed estimation problems. My doctoral thesis supervisor was Prof. Christos G. Cassandras.

I did my undergraduate studies in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (2011-2015). After graduation, I joined the same department first as a temporary instructor and then as a research assistant (2015-2017). During this period, my research was on developing an autonomous robotic system for reconnaissance applications and a non-intrusive load monitoring system for smart-grid applications. At the time, my research supervisors were Prof. Roshan Godaliyadda, Prof. Parakrama Ekanayake, Prof. Janaka Wijayakulasooriya, and Prof. Janaka Ekanayake.

I completed my primary, secondary, and tertiary education at Kingswood College, Kandy, Sri Lanka (1997-2010). I did my A/L exams from the physical science stream (combined mathematics).

I hope you find this website informative. For more information, please feel free to reach out to me via email (shirantha27@gmail.com).

Have a nice day!

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