Claire Lackner

Papers

Total Citations

319

H-Index

About

Claire Lackner is a leading roboticist whose work has fundamentally shaped how robots grasp and manipulate objects in the real world. Her research centers on the intersection of robotic manipulation, grasp planning, and contact mechanics, with a particular focus on enabling dexterous, stable interaction with complex 3D objects. Her most influential contribution, the 2007 paper "Grasp Planning via Decomposition Trees" (219 citations), introduced a novel planner that accounts for the critical but often-overlooked relationship between hand size and object geometry, as well as physical joint limitations, making grasps both realizable and stable for practical robotics applications. In parallel, her work on "Soft Finger Model with Adaptive Contact Geometry" (100 citations) provided a groundbreaking analytical framework for modeling soft-finger contacts, deriving friction constraints from the local geometry and elasticity of contacting bodies. This work is essential for designing compliant grippers that can handle delicate or irregularly shaped items. Through these foundational contributions, Lackner has provided the theoretical and algorithmic tools that underpin modern robotic grasping, directly impacting industries from manufacturing to assistive robotics.