Minduli Wijayatunga

Education

• PhD, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2024
• B.Eng. Aeronautical (Space) and BSc. Physics and Maths , University of Sydney, Australia, 2020

Biography

Minduli Charithma Wijayatunga is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering whose research focuses on spacecraft autonomy, guidance, navigation and control, and space sustainability. Her work lies at the intersection of optimal control, convex optimisation, reinforcement learning, and safety-critical control, with applications to rendezvous and proximity operations, active debris removal, in-orbit servicing, and planetary defence. She received her Ph.D from the University of Auckland, where her doctoral research addressed trajectory design and autonomous guidance for complex space missions. Currently, she is a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Dr. Wijayatunga’s long-term vision is to develop end-to-end autonomous systems that enable safer, more sustainable use of the space environment, integrating perception, trajectory optimisation, and verified control into operationally deployable frameworks.

Selected Articles in Journals

• Convex-optimization-based model predictive control for space debris removal mission guidance MC Wijayatunga, R Armellin, H Holt, L Pirovano, C Bombardelli ,Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 47 (9), 1885-1904
• Robust trajectory design and guidance for far-range rendezvous using reinforcement learning with safety and observability considerations,  MC Wijayatunga, R Armellin, H Holt Aerospace Science and Technology 159, 109996
• Exploiting scaling constants to facilitate the convergence of indirect trajectory optimization methods. MC Wijayatunga, R Armellin, L Pirovano Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 46 (5), 958-969
• Design and guidance of a multi-active debris removal mission, MC Wijayatunga, R Armellin, H Holt, L Pirovano, AA Lidtke, Astrodynamics 7 (4), 383-399

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• State-dependent trust region for successive convex optimization of spacecraft trajectories, N Bernardini, MC Wijayatunga, N Baresi, R Armellin, 33rd AAS/AIAA space flight mechanics meeting