Prof Pubudu Pathirana

Pubudu N. Pathirana received First Class Honours in B.E(Elec) Engineering and B.Sc(math) in 1996 from the University of Western Australia(UWA). He received his PhD in Missile Guidance and Control from the same university in 2001. He was a recipient of EMSS and OPRS scholarships for his undergraduate and post graduate education respectively.

He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford University, UK in 2000/2001, a research fellow in The University of New South Wales, Sydney and a consultant to the Weapons systems division of the Defence Science and Technology Organization(DSTO) Australia 2002/2003, before joining Deakin University in March 2003. He was a visiting Associate Professor at Yale University, USA in 2009.

He has won numerous reseach grants including ARC(Discovery, LIEF), DSTO in excess of 5M and published in numerous international journals and conferences in areas including, navigation, vision based guidance, swarm robotics, mobile computing/networking and applications into assistive devices and rehabilitation robotics covering over 200 refereed publications. He is also a reviewer for several international journals, transactions and conferences and an OzReader with the Australian Research Council. He has been engaged in collabratitve research and developments with number of Australian and Interantional companies and currently heads the Networked Sensing and Control (NSC) Research group at Deakin university with 7 students being currently supervised as the principal supervisor.

Head of the Disipline, Mechatronics, Electrical and Electronic Enginering (2021-)

Programme Director for Mechtronics and Robotics (2005-2007)

Director, Sensing Control and Diagnostics for a Sustainable Future (SCDSF) - Faculty Research Cluster (2010-2012)

Research Grants :

[1]Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Device for guiding therapy in ataxia and imbalance, Medical Research Future Fund(MRFF), $ 939,000 (2020-2022).

[2]Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Measuring upper limb function in Dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA), Ataxia UK, £62,731 (2021-2024).

[3] A/Prof Pubudu Pathirnana, Human Bio-Kinematics for Tele-Rehabilitation, Data61 $148,166 (2016).

[4]A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Analysis of truncal movements of People with Parkinson's Disease, Florey Institute of Neuroscience, $27,000 (2016).

[5]A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Creating Smart Search Engine on SQL/no-SQL databases, $20,500 (2019).

[6]A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Kinematic motion encoded network paradigm for wearable and non-invasive sensors in Tele-monitoring in the use of Human Physiological data, Data61 $315,000 (2017).

[7] A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Courseware Development, MathWorks Inc, USA, $20,000 (2016).

[8]A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Objective testing of Human Balance, Florey Institute of  Neuroscience, $190,000 (2016).

[9]A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Assistive Bionics for Physiotherapy and Respiratory Analysis, NICTA, $187,014 (2016).

[10] A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Prof Sevetha Venkatesh, Human motion caprure, NICTA, $736,840 (2011).

[11] A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Sensor fusion based bynamic state estimation for sourcing of information in driver assistance, Auto CRC, $77, 500 (2009).

[12] Prof Marimuthu Palaniswami, Prof Priyan Mendis, A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Prof Rajkumar Buyya, Prof Christopher Leckie, A/Prof Matt Duckham, LIEF, $270,000 (2012). 

[13] Nahavandi, S., Shirinzadeh, B., Trinh, H., Chen, Y., Pathirana, P., Kouzani, A., Frayman, Y., Zhong, Y., Creighton, D. and Bhatti, A., A haptically enabled universal motion simulator research facility, ARC LIEF, $285,000, 2008.

[14] A/Prof Pubudu Pathirana, Prof Bernard Rolfe, Dr Alan Wong, Nodal Power Saving for Disconnected Ad Hoc Sensor Networks, ARC DP , $260,000(2006).

Assitive Robotics and BioMedical Devices, Sensor Networks, Human Motion Capture, Machine learning, Wireless Communications 

Director Network Sensing and Biomedical Engineering Research group.

SEE 312 Data Communications, SER 301 Electromechanical Systems Design

Computer and Sensor Networks, Human Motion Capture, Navigation and Control, Biomedical Signal and Information Processing, Rehabiliation Robotics and Assistive devices

Senior Member IEEE 

Assessor Australian Research Council(ARC)

• 2017 - “Wearable BioKin device to change lives of Parkinson’s disease patients, race- horses and golfers”, 18th August, 2017 Herald Sun
• 2017 - “Motion capture device for rehab patients”, Wednesday, 23 August, 2017, Electronics online
• 2017 - "Home-grown wearable tech revolutionising motion analysis",18th August 2017, Deakin Media release
• 2017 - "Wireless motion capture device with widespread applications in fitness, health", 21th August, 2017, Phys.Org 
• 2013 - "Geelong leads the way in rehabilitation technology" - Transport and Accident Commision(TAC) Media release, 24th October 2013

Network Sensing and Biomedical Engineering

Spinger Vergag London best paper award in the IEEE Conference on Control Applications and Symposium on Computer Aided Control Systems Design, Glasgow, Scotland, 2002

ISSNIP Collaborations Award, 2008

Geelong ICT award on Emerging Technologies for BioKin(TM), 2014

L.Corben, M. Horne,  P.N. Pathirana, D. Szmulewicz, M.Delatycki, Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) *rideATAXIA Europe research award of 85,000 Euro (2018)