Dr. Supun Randeni

Supun Randeni is a Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his BEng. (Hons) in Naval Architecture degree from the Australian Maritime College, Uni. of Tasmania in 2013, and his Ph.D in Maritime Engineering from the same institution in 2018. From 2018 – 2021 he conducted his postdoctoral research at MIT, where he furthered his Ph.D work, and developed a high resolution AUV navigation system (HydroMAN – a system that is now being used in DARPA Manta Ray program) together with an integrated acoustic communication and navigation network for under-ice operations, which was demonstrated at the 2020 US Navy Ice Exercise (ICEX20) conducted in the Arctic Beaufort Sea to provide a GPS-grade navigation solution to underwater vehicles. During his postdoctoral training, he also conducted research on developing a non-acoustic position estimation technique for submarine towed-arrays systems, and he developed a new low-cost, A-size AUV (MK39-Morpheus) with a bio-inspired design of adaptive dorsal fins to dynamically alter the vehicle’s directional stability in order to improve both maneuverability and stability. His research interests lie in GPS-denied navigation, multi-vehicle autonomy, anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and vehicle platform development.