Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Carina Veil’s research lies at the intersection of soft robotics and human-robot collaboration, where she develops control strategies that make inherently compliant manipulators both safe and precise. Her most-cited work, “Nonlinear disturbance observers for robotic continuum manipulators” (2021, 39 citations), introduces a framework for estimating external forces without rigid sensors—a critical step toward enabling soft robots to work alongside humans in unstructured environments. In “One-Shot kinesthetic programming by demonstration for soft collaborative robots” (2020, 22 citations), Veil pioneered a method that allows non-expert users to teach continuum robots new tasks through a single physical demonstration, dramatically lowering the barrier to industrial adoption. Her subsequent papers on disturbance-observer-based control and hybrid force/position control (2020, 13 and 7 citations) address the modeling challenges that have historically kept fluid-driven continuum manipulators out of factories. By combining nonlinear estimation with intuitive programming, Veil’s work directly tackles the safety-versus-precision trade-off that defines modern collaborative robotics. Her contributions are particularly notable for bridging the gap between theoretical continuum mechanics and practical, deployable systems—a rare achievement that positions soft robots as viable alternatives to traditional industrial arms.