Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Mariana de Paula Assis Fonseca is a pioneering roboticist whose work sits at the intersection of control theory, human-robot interaction, and whole-body manipulation. Her most influential contribution is the development of a six-degree-of-freedom task-space admittance controller using dual quaternion logarithmic mapping—a breakthrough that elegantly couples translational and rotational impedance into a single mathematical framework. This work, published in 2020 and garnering 22 citations, has become a cornerstone for researchers seeking physically compliant and safe robot behaviors during environmental interaction. Fonseca further advanced the field by designing adaptive controllers that guarantee better conditioning of the robot’s inertia matrix, directly addressing the numerical instability that plagues dynamic control systems. Her research extends to whole-body hierarchical control for humanoid robots, leveraging dual quaternion algebra to coordinate complex, multi-task motions. Most recently, she has turned her attention to the challenging domain of agricultural robotics, studying human-inspired grasping strategies for fresh fruits and vegetables—a project that promises to revolutionize automated harvesting. With a career marked by mathematical rigor and practical impact, Fonseca is shaping the future of robots that interact safely and intelligently with both people and delicate objects.