Kalana Withanage
Staff Engineer at AuralMinds
Adelaide, South Australia
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolKalana Withanage is a Staff Engineer and founder with 11+ years of hands-on experience and 17+ years leading multidisciplinary projects across machine learning, computer vision, embedded systems, robotics and IoT. Currently driving ML and safety-critical embedded initiatives at Lockheed Martin while building AuralMinds to train the next generation in AI and autonomous systems, he blends strategic roadmapping with deep technical delivery—from SIL-3 system design to STM32 firmware and RF-based V2X research. His background spans industry, academia and startups, giving him rare fluency in productizing research, mentoring high-performance teams, and scaling solutions across sectors like automotive, mining and intelligent transport. A PhD in robotic vision and practical experience in SLAM, sensor fusion and low-power embedded design mean he’s equally comfortable on GPU clusters or hardware bring-up benches. Notably, he founded a structured entrepreneurship program to coach students into tech founders, reflecting a sustained commitment to ecosystem building as well as engineering.
11 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
BSc (First class honours) Electrical and Information Engineering, BSc (First class honours) Electrical and Information Engineering at University of RuhunaDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Vision / Human-Robot Interaction / Robotics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Vision / Human-Robot Interaction / Robotics at University of South AustraliaNano Degree Self Driving Car Engineer, Nano Degree Self Driving Car Engineer at Udacity
Github Skills (12)
ignition5
gazebosim5
robotics4
simulation4
interaction4
gazebo-simulator4
sdf4
ros4
openscenegraph4
simulator4
robotics-simulation3
robot-simulator3
Programming languages (1)
Github contributions (5)
pwkalana9/udacity_sensor_fusion_and_object_tracking
Nov 2022 - Nov 2022
Contributions:17 pushes in 11 days
pwkalana9/udacity_sdce_control
Dec 2022 - Jan 2023
Contributions:14 pushes, 1 branch in 29 days
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