Professor/ Head of the Department

Asanga Ratnaweera

Contact Info

Office:

Heat Engines Lab,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

University of Peradeniya,

Peradeniya,20400,

Sri Lanka

Education:
  • B.Sc.Eng. - 1997 , University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
  • Ph.D. - 2004 , University of Melbourne, Austrialia

    • Biography

    Prof. Asanga Ratnaweera obtained his B.Sc. Engineering (honors) specializing in the field of Production Engineering, the University of Peradeniya in 1997. He obtained his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2004. He has been serving for nearly 25 years at the University of Peradeniya as an academic staff member in various capacities. Further, Prof. Ratnaweera worked as an adjunct professor in Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University, USA from 2010 – 2011 on sabbatical. His major research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Optimization, Image Processing, Automobile Engineering, and Machining Technology.

    Teaching/ Experiences

    • Professor - October 2020 to Present.

      • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    • Visiting Professor - August 2010 to August 2011 (On Sabbatical).

      • Texas Tech University, Texas, USA

    • Senior Lecturer - 2005 to 2020.

      • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    • Lecturer (Part Time) - 2000 to 2004.

      • Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia

    • Lecturer (Probationary) - 2000 to 2005 (On study leave from Oct. 2000 to Oct. 2004).

      • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    • Assistant Lecturer - 1998 to 2000.

      • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    You can find lecture resources HERE

    Service

    • Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya - November 2018 to Date

    • Director, Engineering Workshops, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya - March 2015 to March 2018

    • Consultant, Project on upgrading the faculty workshop and introducing new practical course modules for students to get hands-on experience in workshop machinery, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Ruhuna

    • Visiting Distinguished Professor, Texas Tech University, Texas, USA - September 2011 to August 2011 (On Sabbatical)

    • Director, Engineering Education Unit, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya - 2007 to 2010

    • Consultant and Member of Technical Evaluation Committee, establishment of Engineering Workshop, Faculty of Science and Technology, Uva Wellassa University - 2011

    • Deputy Proctor, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya - 2011 to 2012

    Awards & Prizes

    • Australian Alumni Excellence Award 2014 for Research

    • Melbourne International Research Scholarship for postgraduate studies at University of Melbourne - 2000.

    • Colombo Dockyard Prize for the best performance in Production Engineering, University of Peradeniya - 1997.

    • M. Amarathunga Prize for the best performance in the subject Strength of Materials, University of Peradeniya - 1997.

    Publications

    Selected Journal Publications

    • Ratnaweera, S. K. Halgamuge, and H. C. Watson, Self-organizing hierarchical particle swarm optimizer with time-varying acceleration coefficients, IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 240–255, Jun. 2004. Total Google Citations: 3163.

    • B. C. Chang, A. Ratnaweera, S. K. Halgamuge, and H. C. Watson, Particle swarm optimisation for protein motif discovery, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, vol. 5, pp.203-214, (2004).

    • Kularathne, I. W., Gunathilake, C. A.,Ratnaweera A. C., Kalpage C. S., and Rajapakse, S., 2019, “The Effect of Use of Biofuels on Environmental Pollution—A Review,” Int. J. of Renewable Energy Res., 9(3), pp. 1355–1367.

    • Mahanama Dharmawardhana, Asanga Ratnaweera, and Gheorghe Oancea, STEP-NC Compliant Intelligent CNC Milling Machine with an Open Architecture Controller, Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(13), 6223.

    • Indrani W. Kularathne, Chamila Gunathilake, Bhagya S Yatipanthalawa, Chandrakantha S. Kalpage, Asanga C. Rathneweera, Sanath Rajapakse, Production of green energy ethanol dehydration using rice straw, rice husk and castor oil. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2019).

    • I.W. Kularathne, A.C. Ratnaweera, C.S. Kalpage, S. Rajapakshe and C.A. Gunathilaka, Optimization and Kinetic Parameter Estimation of Bio Ethanol Production from Freely Available Sri Lankan Fruits in Batch Fermentation (2020) - Ceylon Journal of Science, 49(3), 283–291.

    • I. W. Kularathne, C. A. Gunathilaka, A. C. Ratnaweera, C. S. Kalpage, S. Rajapakse, P. Gamage, Optimization of Fermentation Process Parameters for Bioethanol Production from Sri Lankan Overripe Fruits, Engineer: Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, May 2021.

    • Nagahamulla, H.R.K., Ratnayake, U.R. and Ratnaweera, A., 2014. Artificial neural network ensembles in time series forecasting: an application of rainfall forecasting in Sri Lanka. International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer), 6(2).

    • N. D. Liyanagedera, A. Ratnaweera, D. I. B. Randeniya, Test for Efficient Increase/ Decrease Factors for Resilient Backpropagation using Combustion Engine Vibration Signals, International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE), Volume-5-5, pp 45 – 51, November 2015.

    • G.A.C.T. Bandara, D.A.A.C. Ratnaweera, and D.H.S. Maithripala, “Modeling and Control Approach for a Complex-Shaped Underwater Vehicle.” American Journal of Mechanical Engineering, vol. 7, no. 4 (2019): 158-171.

    • Chinthaka Amarasinghe, Asanga Ratnaweera, and Sanjeeva Maitripala, “Monocular Visual SLAM for Underwater Navigation in Turbid and Dynamic Environments.” American Journal of Mechanical Engineering, vol. 8, no. 2 (2020): 76-87. doi: 10.12691/ajme-8-2-5.

    Selected Conference Publications

    • Ratnaweera A, Halgamuge S K, Watson H C (2002), “Particles swarm optimizer with time varying acceleration coefficients.” Proceedings of the 1stInternational Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD): Computational Intelligence for the E-Age, Volume 1, pages: 264-268.

    • Asanga Ratnaweera, Saman Halgamuge and Harry Watson, “Particle Swarm Optimizer with Time Varying Acceleration Coefficients", Proceedings of the 1stinternational Conference on Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems 2002(SCIS2002), Oct. 2002, Tsukuba, Japan.

    • Asanga Ratnaweera, Harry Watson and Saman Halgamuge, “Optimization of Valve Timing Events of Internal Combustion Engines with Particle Swarm Optimization", Proceedings of the 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 2003, vol. 4, pp 2411-2418, Dec. 2003, Canberra, Australia.

    • Asanga Ratnaweera, Saman Halgamuge and Harry Watson, “Engineering Optimization with Evolutionary Computation", Proceedings of International Information Technology Conference 2003, IITC 2004, Dec. 2003, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

    • Ratnaweera, A., Halgamuge, S., and Watson, H., "Enhanced ICSI Engine Performance With Particle Swarm Optimization," SAE Technical Paper 2004-28-0075, 2004.

    • Asanga Ratnaweera, Harry Watson and Saman Halgamuge, “New Engine Optimization Techniques" , Proceeding of FISITA 2004 - World Automotive Congress, Barcelona, Spain, May 2004.

    • Watson, H., Ratnawera, A., and Halgamuge, S., "Optimization of All SI Engine Combustion Control and Related Events for Efficiency," SAE Technical Paper 2006-01- 0045, 2006.

    • D.A. Meedeniya, D.A.A.C. Ratnaweera, “Enhanced Face Recognition through Variation of Principle Component Analysis (PCA)”, Proceeding of IEEE Second International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems ICIIS 2007, 9 – 11 August 2007, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

    • Pathirana P. H. S, Bandara P.C, Ratnaweera A.C, Balasooriya C.P, Bandara M. A, “Sustainable Farming Through Mechanization: Development of a Bund Making Machine”, Proceeding of the International Conference on Sustainable Built Environments (ICSBE), December 2010, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

    • Ratnaweera A.C, Rajapakse N. N., Ranasinghe C. J., Thennakoon T.M.S., Kumara. R.S., Balasooriya C.P.. , Bandara M.A., “Sustainable Paddy Cultivation through Mechanization: Development of a Power Weeder”, Proceeding of the International Conference on Sustainable Built Environments (ICSBE), December, 2010, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

    • K. Sarveswaran and D. A. A. C. Ratnaweera, "An adaptive technique for handwritten Tamil character recognition," 2007 International Conference on Intelligent and Advanced Systems, Kuala Lumpur, 2007, pp. 151-156.

    • Nagahamulla H., Ratnayake U., Ratnaweera A.(2014) Selecting Most Suitable Members for Neural Network Ensemble Rainfall Forecasting Model. Recent Advances on Soft Computing and Data Mining. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 287. Springer, Cham.

    • H. R. K. Nagahamulla, U. R. Ratnayake and A. Ratnaweera, "Monsoon rainfall forecasting in Sri Lanka using artificial neural networks," 2011 6th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, Kandy, 2011, pp. 305-309.

    • B. M. T. Lekamge and D. A. A. C. Ratnaweera, "A hybrid approach "A hybrid approach for online tea color separation," 2011 6th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, Kandy, 2011, pp. 70-75.

    • A. W. G. C. D. Wijetunge and D. A. A. C. Ratnaweera, "Real-time recognition of license plates of moving vehicles in Sri Lanka," 2011 6th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, Kandy, 2011, pp. 82-87.

    • H. R. K. Nagahamulla, U. R. Ratnayake and A. Ratnaweera, "An ensemble of Artificial Neural Networks in Rainfall Forecasting," International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer2012), Colombo, 2012, pp. 176-181.

    • HRK Nagahamulla, UR Ratnayake, DAAC Ratnaweera, An Effective Neural Network Ensemble Architecture For Short Term Rainfall Forecasting, Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction Management, December 2013, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

    • N. D. Liyanagedera, A. Ratnaweera and D. I. B. Randeniya, "Vibration signal analysis for fault detection of combustion engine using neural network," 2013 IEEE 8th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, Peradeniya, 2013, pp. 427-432.

    • H. Nagahamulla, U. Ratnayake and A. Ratnaweera, "Optimizing member selection for Neural Network ensembles using Genetic Algorithms," 2016 IEEE International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAfS), Galle, 2016, pp. 1-5.

    • G. A. C. T. Bandara, J. H. M. P. Herath, H. G. C. R. Laksiri and D. A. A. C. Ratnaweera, Performance Comparison and Validation of Controllers for an Inverted Pendulum System, 2019 14th Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), Kandy, Sri Lanka, 2019, pp. 518-522.

    • M Dharmawardhana, G Oancea and A Ratnaweera, A review of STEP-NC compliant CNC systems and possibilities of closed loop manufacturing, 2018 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 399 012014.

    • Chinthaka Amarasinghe, Asanga Ratnaweera, Sanjeeva Maithripala, Hybrid Feature Enhance Filter (HFEF)for Underwater Vision Navigation. Accepted for publication in the proceedings of 2020 IEEE Region 10 Conference, TENCON 2020.

    • M. Dharmawardhana and D.A.A.C. Ratnaweera, Current Trends in STEP-NC Compliant CNC Systems – A Review, Proceedings of Peradeniya University International Research Sessions, Vol 21, pp 66-67, Nov. 2017, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.