Robot Climber Hits The Cliffs Scuttling...

Tough luck climbing guys and gurlz, you're about to be superceded by the world's first robotic rock climber.

'Lemur' has been developed by engineers at Stanford University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California as a protoytype for a totally autonomous rockbot. It doesn't need any sort of remote control and, apparently, can already follow a human climber up technical routes.

Why? The aim is to use it for scientific exploration on the cliffs of Mars, though it also has potential for use in rescue situation on earth. New Scientist describes it as looking like a 'spider', but judging by the pics on their site, it's closer to the bastard offspring of a wall clock and a human being with a disc-like centre section sprouting four jointed limbs.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have benefited from sticky rubber just yet and it still needs to be programmed with a computer model of the wall before it can start climbing, which rules out on sight ascents. All points that are being worked on though, as well as extra articulation for those awkward reaches where you need to bend your elbow backwards against the joint...

For full details and pictures, see this story on the New Scientist site.