Ranatunga
Papers
1
Total Citations
19
H-Index
1
About
Dr. Ranatunga is a leading researcher in physical human-robot interaction (pHRI), with a core focus on developing adaptive control systems that make robots safer and more responsive when working alongside people. Their most influential work, the 2016 paper "Model reference adaptive impedance control for physical human-robot interaction" (19 citations), introduces a novel dual-loop control architecture that fundamentally improves how robots collaborate with human operators. The inner neuroadaptive loop learns robot dynamics in real-time, enabling the robot to behave like a prescribed impedance model without requiring predefined trajectories. The outer loop adapts this impedance to account for human operator dynamics, optimizing joint task performance. This model reference adaptive control approach, while non-standard, delivers guaranteed stability and enhanced task performance. Through simulations of repetitive point-to-point motion tasks, Dr. Ranatunga demonstrated that their controller provides both adaptive impedance characteristics and assistive inputs, significantly improving human-robot team performance. This work represents a major contribution to the field of assistive robotics, offering a mathematically rigorous framework for creating robots that can intuitively adapt to human partners in real-world collaborative scenarios.
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Top Papers
- 1