Malintha Fernando

Malintha Fernando is a Digital Futures Postdoctoral Fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. His current project focuses on Designing Interaction-Aware Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems, aiming to develop scalable distributed control policies for multi-robot systems in dynamic environments. He holds a PhD from Indiana University (2023) and an undergraduate degree from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Prior to KTH, he served as a visiting lecturer in Machine Learning at Indiana University and completed an internship at Open Robotics.

Education:

• PhD in Robotics/Control Systems, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA (2023)
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Research Interests:

Malintha’s work emphasizes cooperative control policies for multi-drone systems, particularly in scenarios with communication failures or dynamic environments. His research addresses challenges in humanitarian aid, disaster response, and urban air mobility (UAM) applications. He explores frameworks to balance task prioritization in real-time, minimizing human bias in system design. Key areas include:

• Decentralized decision-making in multi-agent systems
• Swarm intelligence and UAV coordination
• Robust control under uncertainty

Grants & Supervision:

His fellowship is hosted by KTH’s Department of Mathematics, under the supervision of Assistant Professor Silun Zhang (Optimization and System Theory) and Professor Petter Ögren (Robotics, Perception and Learning). The project aligns with Digital Futures’ mission to address societal challenges through digital innovation.

Labs & Teams:

Malintha is affiliated with the Division of Optimization and System Theory and the Robotics, Perception and Learning (RPL) group at KTH, contributing to cross-disciplinary research in robotics and control systems.