Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Shalutha Rajapakshe is a robotics researcher dedicated to making autonomous systems more accessible, affordable, and effective for real-world humanitarian applications. Her primary research areas span multi-robot coordination, low-cost robotics platforms, and shared autonomy frameworks for assistive technologies. Rajapakshe’s most impactful contribution is her work on collaborative ground-aerial systems for disaster response, where she developed a low-cost drone add-on for off-the-shelf drones—enabling rapid damage assessment and resource allocation in dangerous environments without risking human lives (12 citations). She also designed a research-oriented, low-cost robotics platform featuring a novel dynamic global path planning approach, breaking down financial barriers that typically hinder experimentation with complex navigation algorithms (7 citations). Most recently, Rajapakshe has tackled the challenge of shared autonomy, creating an intuitive control framework that maps 2D inputs to 6D robot motions, making assistive robotics more user-friendly. Her work stands out for its practical focus on affordability and accessibility, ensuring that advanced robotics technologies can be deployed where they are needed most—from disaster zones to assistive care settings.