Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Luca Lach investigates the intersection of robotics, tactile sensing, and sustainability, with a focus on enabling more intelligent and responsible physical interaction. His most cited work, “Robotics: Enabler and Inhibitor of the Sustainable Development Goals” (70 citations), critically examines how robotic technologies can both advance and hinder progress toward the UN’s SDGs, establishing him as a voice on the societal implications of automation. In technical contributions, Lach advances dexterous manipulation through tactile sensing: his 2021 paper on Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (25 citations) demonstrates how touch feedback dramatically improves sample efficiency for in-hand manipulation tasks, a key challenge in reinforcement learning for robotics. His 2023 study “Placing by Touching” (9 citations) empirically shows that tactile sensors enable precise object placement without relying on vision, overcoming occlusion problems common in real-world settings. Lach also developed a bio-inspired grasping controller for sensorized 2-DoF grippers (4 citations), which combines position and force control to minimize object displacement during uncertain grasps. This work has direct applications in manufacturing and assistive robotics. By bridging deep reinforcement learning, tactile perception, and sustainable design, Lach’s research offers practical pathways toward more capable, sample-efficient, and ethically grounded robotic systems.