Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Lew Waller is a pioneering instrumentation scientist whose career has been defined by transforming how telescopes capture the cosmos. His central research area is the development of multi-object fibre-optic positioning systems—the robotic “hands” that allow telescopes to observe hundreds of celestial targets simultaneously. Waller’s most significant contribution is his leadership in creating the 2dF facility for the Anglo-Australian Observatory, a system that revolutionized wide-field spectroscopy and has amassed over 350 citations. He then translated this expertise to the Very Large Telescope, designing OzPoz, a sophisticated fibre positioner that brought the same robotic efficiency to one of the world’s premier observatories. More recently, Waller has driven the TAIPAN instrument, a prototype for the Giant Magellan Telescope’s MANIFEST system, which uses agile “Starbug” robots to position fibres with extraordinary precision. His work on MANIFEST’s pre-concept design is paving the way for the next generation of giant telescopes. With a career spanning two decades, Waller’s innovations have directly enabled the large-scale surveys that underpin modern astrophysics, making him a key architect of the robotic instrumentation that continues to expand our view of the universe.