Muhanad Alkilabi

Personal Info.

Name: Mohammed Alkilabi
Nationality: Iraqi
Place, Date of Birth: Karbala (Iraq), 28th Oct 1980
Current employment: Assistant Professor University of Kerbala, Iraq
Postal address: Collage of computer science & Information Technology University of Kerbala,
Faryha Campus, Karbala, Iraq.

Qualifications:

23th Sept 2013 – 10th Jan 2018 :PhD in Computer Science (Swarm Robotics), Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

7th Sept 2015 – 28th Feb 2017:Postgraduate Certificate for Teaching in Higher Education (PGCTHE), Aberystwyth University. This is a Master’s level qualification in the form of a Postgraduate Certificate, as well as registration with the UK Higher Education Academy as a Fellow (HEA).

25th June 2005 -1st July 2007:MSc in Computer Science, Pune University, Pune, India.

25th Sept 1999 – 1st July 2003:BSc in Electrical Engineering, AL-Mustansyria University, Baghdad, Iraq.

Teaching

Undergraduate Modules:
1st Oct 2008 – The following Modules taught at Computer Science Department, Karbala University, Iraq:
• Operating Systems, 4th Year.
• Robotics, 3rd Year.
• Compiler Construction, 3rd Year.
• Object Oriented Programming, 2nd Year.
Postgraduate Modules:
• 22th Jan 2015 – 1st May 2016 Applied Intelligent Systems Module taught at Computer Science Department, Aberystwyth University, UK.
• 1st Nov 2020 – 4th Jan 2021 Robotics module taught at Computer Science Department, University of Kerbala, Iraq.

Oral Presentations

  •  Oral Skype presentation to present the collaborative research proposal with Aberystwyth University, UK title “From Grassroots Robotics to Sustainable Development: Robotics Clubs, Informal Education and Technological Development in Iraq” to Global Challenges Research Fund GCRF community in 2019. This proposal wins a £13000 fund (see Grand section).
  •  Oral presentation to present a full paper at the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS), London, Nov 2016
  •  Oral presentation to present a full paper at the 10th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence (ANTS), Brussels, Belgium, Sept 2016.
  •  Oral presentation to present a late-breaking abstract at the International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Systems (SAB), Aberystwyth, UK, Aug 2016.
  • Oral presentation to present a research project on cooperative transport by a swarm of robots to attract fund offered by Qinetiq company (UK) in 2016. This project wins a grant of £ 92.000,00 for a 3 years project from the mentioned company (see Grand section).
  • • Oral presentation to present a full paper at the European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), York, UK, July 2015.

 

Employment History

  • 2021 – 2022 Post-doc at Computer Science Department, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
  • 2019 – 2021 Assistant Professor at Computer Science Department, University of Kerbala, Karbala, Iraq
  • 2010 – 2019 Lecturer at Computer Science Department, University of Kerbala, Karbala, Iraq. From June 2013 to January 2018 I left Iraq to do my PhD in UK with funding from the Iraqi government.
  • 2008 – 2010 Associated Lecturer at Computer Science Department, University of Kerbala, Karbala, Iraq.

Memberships

• 27th Mar 2016 Associated Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), UK.
• 3rd Mar 2017 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), UK.

Laboratory Foundation

Dr. Muhanad Alkilabi founded, in 2018, the Robotics and IoT laboratory at the Department of Computer Science, University of Kerbala. The lab runs practical sessions for undergraduate and master level students. It is also used by students to implement robotics projects. Dr. Muhanad managed to attract international funding to equip the lab with educational robotics systems to run collaborative research at international level (see Grand section).

Grants and Awards

Dr. Muhanad Alkilabi founded, in 2018, the Robotics and IoT laboratory at the Department of Computer Science, University of Kerbala. The lab runs practical sessions for undergraduate and master level students. It is also used by students to implement robotics projects. Dr. Muhanad managed to attract international funding to equip the lab with educational robotics systems to run a• 2019: Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). This is a £13000 Grant. Project title “From Grassroots Robotics to Sustainable Development: Robotics Clubs, Informal Education and Technological Development in Iraq”. This is a Iraq-UK collaborative project between the University of Kerbala research group led by Dr. Muhanad Alkilabi and the Aberystwyth University research group led by Prof. Milja Kurki. The project objective is to improve technological innovation capacity and learning of young people in Karbala city, Iraq. The grant is used to equip the Robotics and IoT Lab at the Computer Science Department at the University of Kerbala with educational robots and IoT kits to run Robotics Club training workshops.
• 2016: Based on the results obtained from my PhD work, Dr. Elio Tuci (my supervisor) managed to attracted a private fund under the EnHeRS Project: Engineering Heterogeneous Swarm, funded by Qinetiq (UK), £ 92.000,00 for a 3 years project (from Oct. 2016 to Oct. 2019).
• 2015: Joint winner of the best second year PhD student price provided by Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science (IMPaCS), Aberystwyth University, UK.
collaborative research at international level (see Grand section).

2020
• Syed Imran Ali, Abdilahi Ali, Muhanad AlKilabi and Michael Christie. “Optimal supply chain design with product family: A cloud-based framework with real-time data consideration”. Computers & Operations Research, Elservier, 2020, Vol.126, p. 105112, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2020.105112.
2018 :
• Elio Tuci, Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, and Otar Akanyeti. “Cooperative Object Transport in Multi-robot Systems: A Review of the State-of-the-Art”. Frontier on Robotic and AI. 2018, Vol.5, p.59, DOI:10.3389/frobt.2018.00059.
2017 :
• Aparajit Narayan, Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, Frederic Labrosse , Elio Tuci, “A Dynamic Color Perception System for Autonomous Driving in Unmarked Roads”, Neurocomputing Journal, Elservier , Nov 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.neucom.2017.11.008.

• Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, Aparajit Narayan, and Elio Tuci. “Cooperative object transport with a swarm of e-puck robots: robustness and scalability of evolved collective strategies”. Swarm Intelligence Journal (Springer), pp 185–209, Dec 2017, Volume 11, Issue 3–4, ISSN 1935-3820. DOI: 10.1007/s11721-017-0135-8.

 


Papers in Peer-reviewed International Conferences:
2017:
• Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi and Elio Tuci. “Odometry in swarms of e-puck robots cooperatively transporting a heavy object”. In C. Knabbe et. al., editor, The 14th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), Lyon, France, Late breaking abstract pages 15-16, Sept 2017.

• Aparajit Narayan, Elio Tuci, Frederic Labrosse and Muhanad H. M Alkilabi. “Road detection using convolutional neural networks”. In C. Knabbe et. al., editor, Proceedings of The 14th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), Lyon, France, pages 314 – 321, MIT, Sept 2017.

2016 :
• Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, A. Narayan, C. Lu, and E. Tuci. “Evolving group transport strategies for e-puck robots: moving objects towards a target area”. In R. Gross et. al., editor, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS), London, UK, Springer STAR, Nov 2016, In Press.

• Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, A. Narayan, and E. Tuci. “Design and analysis of proximate mechanisms for cooperative transport in real robots”. In M. Dorigo et. al., editors, Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence (ANTS), Brussels, Belgium, pages 101–112. Springer, Sept 2016.

2015 :
• Muhanad H.M. Alkilabi, C. Lu, and E. Tuci. Cooperative object transport using evolu- tionary swarm robotics methods. In P. Andrews, L. Caves, R. Doursat, S. Hick- inbotham, F. Polack, S. Stepney, T. Taylor, and J. Timmis, editors, Proceedings of the European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), York, UK, pages 464–471. MIT, July 2015