INTELLIGENT SERVICE ROBOTICS GROUP PRESENT AT IEEE IROS 2018
A research paper titled ‘Proxemics and Approach Evaluation by Service Robot Based on User Behavior in Domestic Environment’’ was presented at the 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) held from Oct 01 - 05 in Madrid, Spain by S. M. Bhagya P. Samarakoon, a postgraduate research student and Dr. M. A. Viraj J. Muthugala in the Department of Electrical Engineering . The manuscript was written by S. M. Bhagya P. Samarakoon, H. P. Chapa Sirithunge and M. A. Viraj J. Muthugala under the supervision of Dr. A.G. Buddhika P. Jayasekara. The authors are from the Intelligent Service Robotics Group- Department of Electrical Engineering and they are working on the development of Moratuwa Intelligent Robot (MIRob), an intelligent service robot for domestic environments.
The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) is one of the largest and most impacting robotics research conferences worldwide. This year over 4000 participants were presented and the conference had the largest robotic exhibition in the history of IROS. IROS has rank no. 5 in top 20 sources of robotics sub-category of Google Scholar Metrics where h5 index is 71. The research was funded by a Senate Research Long Term Grant (SRC/LT/2018/20) of University of Moratuwa.

obotics Group, Department of Electrical Engineering was awarded the Nanjing City prize for the research paper entitled "Replicating Natural Approaching behavior of Humans for Improving Robot's Approach toward Two persons During a Conversation" published in 27th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) held from Aug 27-31. The city of Nanjing has offered 10 "Robotics Innovation Awards" to encourage innovation and advances in Science and robotics in particular by sponsoring each of the awardees with a value of 10000 Yuans (US$1500). The award winners were chosen on the basis of originality, usefulness and scientific and technical soundness of the contribution. The manuscript was authored by Bhagya Samarakoon and Dr. Viraj Muthugala under the supervision of Dr. Buddhika Jayasekara.



