Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Cristina Sorice is a robotics engineer whose work spans planetary exploration and autonomous maritime systems, with a focus on enabling complex robotic operations in challenging environments. A key contributor to NASA’s InSight Mars Lander mission, she played a central role in the Instrument Deployment System (IDS), which achieved the first precision robotic placement of science instruments on another planet. Her work on the lander’s color cameras (64 citations) and robotic arm testing for the HP³ mole anomaly recovery (4 citations) were critical to mission success. Sorice also developed a catenary model for the SEIS seismometer tether deployment, ensuring precise instrument positioning. Beyond Mars, she advanced autonomous maritime systems, contributing to the CARACaS multi-agent autonomy framework (19 citations) that enabled unmanned surface vehicles to perform cooperative harbor patrol demonstrations. Her research extends to robust vision-based navigation for micro aerial vehicles at night (6 citations), demonstrating her versatility across domains. With over 150 total citations, Sorice’s contributions exemplify the intersection of robotic manipulation, autonomy, and real-world deployment—from the Red Planet to Earth’s oceans.