Rate My Professor Sanath Alahakoon

Dr. Sanath Alahakoon serves as Senior Lecturer and Discipline Leader in Electrical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Technology at Central Queensland University, based at the Gladstone campus and attached to the Centre for Railway Engineering. He earned his B.Sc. Eng (Honours) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 1994, and his Ph.D. in Digital Motion Control from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, in 2000. Before joining CQUniversity in July 2009, Alahakoon was Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Peradeniya from May 2000 to June 2009. Earlier roles at the same institution included Probationary Lecturer from 1996 and Temporary Instructor in 1995. His career also encompasses industrial training at Arthur C. Clark Centre for Modern Technologies in 1993 and the Buildings Department in Kegalle in 1985.

Alahakoon's research specializations include electrical machines and drives, digital control, estimation and identification, non-linear control, instrumentation, automation, renewable energy, microgrids, and hybrid electric systems. His thrust areas focus on instrumentation for condition monitoring, such as rail flaw detection, pipe crack detection, and condition monitoring of electrical machines, alongside renewable energy applications like battery and microgrid management systems and fuel cell-battery hybrid energy systems for transportation and remote communities. He has earned recognition for teaching excellence as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in 2020. Additional honors include the Gledden Visiting Fellowship at The University of Western Australia in 2008, where he contributed to research on Sliding Mode Observers and published 10 papers, and a Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan, in 2006, leading to publications on soft actuators and sensors. Key publications feature 'Rail foot flaw detection based on a laser induced ultrasonic guided wave method' (2019), 'Impact assessment of AC and DC electric rope shovels on coal mine power distribution system' (2012), 'The design and construction of a battery electric vehicle propulsion system - high performance electric kart application' (2017), 'Microgrid and fleet to grid operation of a hybrid electric ferry' (2021), and 'Impact of coordinated electric ferry charging on distribution network using metaheuristic optimization' (2025). These works demonstrate his impact on sustainable energy solutions and advanced monitoring technologies in engineering.