Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

M.A. Shanblatt is a pioneering figure in the intersection of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design and robotics, whose work laid crucial groundwork for specialized, real-time robotic control hardware. Her research focuses on developing application-specific computer architectures that offload computationally intensive tasks from general-purpose processors. Shanblatt’s most significant contribution is the design of a dedicated VLSI chip for real-time Direct Kinematic Solution (DKS) computation, a breakthrough that enabled high-resolution, fixed-point calculations with on-chip trigonometric generation for industrial robots. Her seminal 1987 paper on “Real-time DKS on a single chip” (25 citations) demonstrated how nascent ASIC technology could relieve the computational burden on robotic systems, while her 2003 review (14 citations) established a conceptual framework for designing robotic hardware. Notably, Shanblatt spearheaded a paradigm of government/industry/university cooperation, leading a student team to develop a PSoC controller for a NASA robotic arm—a project that bridged academic capstone design with real-world space agency needs. Her work remains foundational for researchers exploring custom silicon solutions for robotics, proving that hardware specialization can unlock unprecedented real-time performance.