Michael Garrett
California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Papers
17
Total Citations
554
H-Index
12
About
Michael Garrett is a robotics researcher whose career has centered on advancing autonomous systems for planetary exploration and extreme terrain mobility. Working primarily at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Garrett has made foundational contributions to Mars rover technology, multi-robot coordination, and bio-inspired climbing systems. His early work on lightweight survivable rovers and long-range Mars platforms in the late 1990s helped shape the trajectory of planetary surface exploration following the Mars Pathfinder mission. He co-developed LEMUR, an early legged rover concept, and contributed to CAMPOUT, a sophisticated control architecture enabling tightly coupled multi-robot coordination on hazardous terrain—a paper that has garnered 136 citations. His gravity-independent rock-climbing robot, which employs hierarchical microspine grippers to scale vertical and inverted rock faces, has proven equally influential with 136 citations and direct implications for Martian cliff exploration and microgravity body missions. Garrett has also pioneered cooperative robotic work crews for planetary construction, heterogeneous assembly systems for orbital infrastructure, and most recently, articulated wheel-on-limb mobility for Europa analogue environments. His body of work reflects a sustained commitment to expanding the operational boundaries of robotic systems across the solar system.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3LEMUR: Legged Excursion Mechanical Utility Rover45 citations · 2001
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- 5Distributed control for a modular, reconfigurable cliff robot32 citations · 2003
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- 8HETEROGENEOUS ROBOTIC SYSTEMS FOR ASSEMBLY AND SERVICING19 citations · 2005
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