Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts project to design a rover that can operate in the environment of Venus, controlled by a wind-powered mechanical computer. Venus' atmosphere is about 90 times denser than Earth's and the surface temperature is at least 462 °C (864 °F), conditions which would prevent a standard electronic computer from operating for any significant period of time.[1] While AREE is being designed for operation on Venus, the rover's design could be re-purposed for use on Mercury, which has a comparably high surface temperature, on Jovian moons Europa or Io, where high radiation makes use of traditional electronics difficult, or on lava flows or highly radioactive areas on Earth.[2]
The project was first proposed in 2015, and funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program with a phase-I study in 2016,[3] and a phase-II study from 2017-2018.[4]
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