
K.A.D. Ashan Madumal
MSc Student
Ashan Madumal is a Graduate Student at Mississippi State University, pursuing a Master’s degree in Biosystems Engineering. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, where he specialized in Robotics, Mechatronics, Data Science and Automation.
For his undergraduate capstone project, Ashan designed a humanoid robotic face capable of synchronizing lip movements with human speech. This innovative project aimed to enhance applications such as news-reading robots, storytelling robots, receptionist robots, and preschool assistant robots for English pronunciation. His research was presented at the IEEE ICECIE 3rd Conference, under the paper titled "Design of Voice Synchronized Robotic Lips," which included a comparative analysis of human-like speech mimicry.
In addition to his capstone project, Ashan undertook several mini-projects, including a hexacopter equipped with six rotors for autonomous navigation and payload carrying, and a smart watering system for agricultural fields. The latter involved real-time soil moisture monitoring and automated irrigation, with remote control capabilities via mobile app or PC.
Currently, Ashan is focused on developing and testing a fruit-picking end effector. His research aims to create mechanisms that can efficiently pick and store fruit continuously without requiring movement of the end effector, thereby enhancing time efficiency and productivity.