SCALE MODEL: the LEMUR may one day climb Martian cliffs. Courtesy NASA/JPL

with a body reminiscent of an old alarm clock and four crustacean-like limbs, the Legged Excursion Mechanical Utility Rover (LEMUR) looks like something that might have emerged from a spaceship. Which is fitting since it might prove to be a groundbreaking tool for exploring alien landscapes.

A joint venture between Stanford and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this climbing robot could allow scientists to collect data from hard-to-reach places on other planets. Tim Bretl, a graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics, says wheeled robots like the Mars Rover “aren’t very good at getting to the side of cliff faces,” and the dexterous LEMUR is a potential solution.

But before the robot can scale Martian cliffs, it has to master some less exotic terrain: a climbing wall at JPL’s Pasadena, Calif., campus. Bretl’s software helps with this task, allowing LEMUR to assess pathways and choose the optimal course. Bretl, MS ’00, says enabling the robot to autonomously sense its surroundings is probably the greatest challenge, as LEMUR presently must be fed models of its environment.

Nevertheless, a number of Stanford researchers doing related work could advance future versions of the robot. It may be only a matter of time before LEMUR moves from a mottled climbing wall in Southern California to the red rocks of the Martian surface.