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Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation
xlogan writes, "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals on Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA). The agency has put their proposal online.
" The sheer number of mundane tasks I could accomplish with an exoskeleton is amazing. Why, I could rearrange furniture in the blink of an eye, all while defending the Earth from Evil! And with my super-enhanced vision and hearing, I might finally be allowed to join The Justice League of America [?] .
This puts viagra to shame.. Let's stop to ponder the sex you can have with one of these things. If your partner doesn't think you are going fast enough, this should do the job. Also, you could do it in positions never before imaginable.. upside down, sideways.. throw her up in the air, twirl her... the possiblities are endless.
I think it was called "Little John". As I recall, it fired off the end of a 105MM recoilless rifle.
...
Oh well, the Army is full of fun projects like this.
Like the Sgt York DIVAD (Division Air Defense) system. Its radar system was bad. It's cannons worked, I guess. But it was based on the M101 APC chassis, and was intended to keep up with the M1 and M2 on the battle field (which it was intended to protect), but could only go as fast as...well, an M101. Cooler heads prevailed and it finally died, but not after lots of $$$ was pumped into it. At least the Army eventually seems to kill off its albatrosses, rather than embracing them fully like the Air Force (F22, B2) and Navy (F-18E/F). I will argue that a SLEP program on the F14s equivalent in price to the F18E/F procurement would get WAY more "bang for the buck" than the F18E/F bastard child plane.
But I should hold out further judgement until the RAH66 helo begins to get deployed
The big problem with the swiss army knife approach to military equipment is that "we can do more with fewer" argument means that you buy into a single point of failure. Lose the knife, and you have no tools left... At $80 million-2Bn per platinum-plated, diamond-encrusted, swiss army knife...
You mean it's going to be air-droppable for use with the 101 Airmobile and 82 Airborne Dvns? Look at how much grief the Army has with the M551 Sheridan.
Interestingly enough, the Appleseed Databook notes that "true production of master-slave armor" begins in 1992, with "armored shell exoskeleton unit created" in 2029. Oddly enough, true Landmates either aren't widely produced or kept secret for a while; they're portrayed to be a recent development in the first book.
MADOX-01 was particularly interesting, postulating an armored trooper created by the JSDF and US military(in 199X no less!), to semi-replace the attack helicopter. A cheap, lightweight, extremely mobile tank-killer, armed with a small gatling gun and some assorted missiles/shaped charges. About the only thing wrong with it is the assumption made by a lot of directors that the problem of nap-of-the-earth/ground-effect flight will be solved in no time, in a human-sized form without bulky fuel tanks(same assumption in Bubblegum Crisis and Power Dolls). Still, you could use a roller-skate design, like the VOTOMS or Heavy Gears..
IIRC, the Discovery Channel did a series of articles on military/high technology and the anime series predicting them. The MADOX one is at discovery.com/area /technology/virtualtech/issue3/splash.html.
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I like the outfit, but Moore's cuter.
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Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
That has hardsuits that the user 'wears'. That series is (c)1987, hardly a new idea, and I'm sure there was some inspiration before then. The 'robot' thing was what, mid 70's? It supposedly started with 'Gundam'. Mobile Suit Gundam my butt, you pilot them, you don't wear them.
And I think the group of women in the bubblegum crisis series was between 18 & 25, but I really don't know.
Wake me up when it hits the consumer market.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Exoskeletons will prove useful when the US attacks the Archnid army on Klendathu.
IIRC and M-16A1 (the front-line assult rifle of the US military) costs close to 16 thousand dollars per unit.
;).. You can even buy bullpup conversion kits for it.. AKs are cheaper and easier to service, but you can't beat the M16 for weight and street cachet.. ;)
Not on the street it don't.. more like US$2000-3000 for a M16A2 (fewer lethal bugs
Your Working Boy,
"Not necessarily... the proposal doesn't
say anything about it being a
completely self-contained environment."
Well... the proposal may not say so, but then, it _is_ a proposal after all.
The final product may have much more than what the proposal has proposed - for the final product has to take into account how to sustain the living ocndition of the human operator inside, *IF* you put a human operator inside, that is.
And the final product has to deal with the adverse condition those exo-droids would be in operation - in the cold artic area, in the hot desert, above ground, or under water, protection from not only the elements but also protection against bio- and/or chemical warfare.
Those are things that have to be taken into consideration, if you want to put a human being inside the exo-droid.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"The problem with a virtual body is that
it will never replace the capabilities
of an infantry soldier."
Very true !
But then, the exo-skeleton droids with human inside will not be as agile as the infantry soldier either.
Both the virtual body and the exo-droid will be used as something in between an infantry soldier and a tank.
A droid will be more agile than a tank, and more powerful than an infantry soldier. Places where the tank is a sitting duck, droids (or mech) would be there.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"but also protectoin against bio- and/or
chemical warfare."
"or they could just put the same amount of
protection they give soldiers going into
battle against bio/chem warfare... a mask."
A mask maybe enough back in World War One, but not now.
Nerve gas and bio-agents can gets into one's body through the skin.
You do have to wear moon-suit like thing to protect you.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"Bipedal movement is very hard to pull off.
It's also inefficient at low speed,
unstable, and complex. If I was making a
combat bot, I'd probably stick to quads or
wheels--the advantages of bipeds are far
outweighed by the complexity imposed in all
but a very few situations. (Of course,
Murphy dictates that those will be the
situations you end up in, but presumably
there would be a range of bots available.)"
I do agree with you that in many cases bipedal mode of movement is limited, and I also agree without that there ought to be different bots using different modd to move.
However, what I have pointed out is that the Bipedal mode of movement is NOT impossible. It may be slow now, but it could be faster down the road.
We humans have been used to the bipedal mode perspective for millions of years, and perhaps it would take us another million years or two to get us to be used to other forms of perception - be it spiderlike, or fishlike, or birdlike, or germslike, or whatever mode that we haven't even realize yet.
There is much work to be done, and I say let's start to do it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You wrote:
"Joe Haldeman wrote of a similar system
in Forever Peace (ISBN: 0-441-00566-7).
The requirements for a human interface
are fascinating, especially if the
remote is bipedal. I want one."
I am not sure I can afford one, but then, I agree with you, I want one too !
BTW, thanks for mentioning that great book from Mr. Haldeman. I enjoyed it thoroughly the first time I read it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I do recognize the flaws you have outlined. But there are solutions over the flaws.
Frequency wise, you don't have to be stuck onto ONE frequency alone. You can use multiple frequencies, and you can do "frequency hopping", much like the cellphone does.
And you can combine that with encryption and all other sort of detection devices, to minimized (and yes, I reckon that the risk will NEVER be obliviated) interruption or hijaaking.
One more thing, the exo-droid can be equipped with a self-destruct device, much like the rockets - when something is terribly wrong, self-destruct !
It doesn't have to be a "BOOM" kind of self-destruct - all the "self-destruct sequence" needs to do is to shut down the droid, in case interruption or hijaaking is detected and can not be prevented.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Actually, making an exo-droid with a human being INSIDE is MORE complicated than making it without a living human inside.
You see, if you need to put a human inside the exo-droid, you need to keep that guy/gal alive ! That will mean you need to put in life-supporting systems, like air-circulation, temperature control, shock-absorbing devices, water and all the other kind of things. You even need to have two bags - one for urine, the ohter one for feces - so that human doesn't need to come out of the thing too often.
Without the space needed for the human body, and without the space needed for all the life-support system, the xeo-droid-sans-human will be more compact, and be more agile and more stronger.
You mentioned AI - actually, the AI needed for such a droid is not that much - although the current stage of AI development hasn't yet reached the level for a self-awareness AI, it is not that far away.
Plus, if the exo-droid is to be "controlled" or "complemented" by virtual-reality - that is, a human being in remote place can control it virtually, not that much AI is needed after all.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
`It doesn't have to be a "BOOM" kind of
self-destruct - all the "self-destruct
sequence" needs to do is to shut down
the droid, in case interruption or
hijaaking is detected and can not be
prevented.'
"But then you've lost your mech. All the bad
guys would have to do is create a burst of
static long enough for the comunications to
time-out and sudenly your entire army has
shut itself down. You going to send some
guy out there to do a hard reboot on all
of them?"
You got a point.
Perhaps the droid should be equipped with AI to detect the difference between signal-jamming and signal-intrution.
In case of jamming that you have outlined above, the AI should be able to take over, and take appropriate evasive/contigency measure - just don't ask me what those measures are right now, I don't have a clue - but maybe the measure depends on what type of mission those exo-droids are sent out to accomplish.
That way, if the bad guys want to jam the signals, they can jam it, but the mech will still carry out their function.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"It's tough to get the balance right for
a walker, without being in it or being
suspended and thrown around to mimic the
slave's movements in a remote control
center."
If I am not wrong, the Japanese have already demonstrated a bipadeled "walker droid" capable of climbing stairs.
It is not perfect yet, but then, the droid has much resemblance to human shape.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Both systems have their uses. If the thing must walk through a fire, then having a human inside is not a good idea.
On the other hand, if it is trying to dig out a person that has been buried alive in an earthquake or landslide, a human operator can use his senses directly (specially things like smell or sense of equilibrium that are hard to transmit remotely) and do a better job.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
The obvious military uses of this I wonder if the private sector will get any use of this. This would great for construction, junk yards, security, farming, ..etc. Alot of our everyday technology drickles down from the military. The question is how long will it take for the military to allow the private sector use this technology.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
Anybody else see this?
Anyway, back OT. DARPA/ARPA funds futuristic items. They always have, and hopefully, always will. Not all of DARPA projects turn out to be successes. Cutting edge stuff often (usually?) fail. However, some stuff do turn out to be winners. The general idea is to push the envelope. In theory this sounds great, in practice, things may be less than ideal.
A lot depends on the Program Managers who control the budgets and equally important put forth the initiatives. While it is tempting to speculate, I will not think about what movies this program Manager saw. Nah, obviously watched RoboCop.
Back Off-topic. Doubleclick?
The quote is taken from the bear suit web site - 'tain't my fault, nohow.
I think they need to work on their physics a little more. If you try to do any jumping above a not-particularly-high height (you do the math), your brain goes "squish" inside the brain case and you come back down a vegetable.
I think you need to check your sources...
From the University of Arizona's web site:
...engine thrust will be reduced to insure that an acceleration force of no more than three times that of Earth's gravity is reached. This acceleration level, permitted by the throttleable Shuttle engines, is about one-third the acceleration experienced on previous manned space flights...
That makes for a maximum acceleration of 9Gs on previous space flights.
That guys is just a freak. His technology is crap.
fucking hilarious!
I'm sorry AC. Some of us have lives and are unable to read the ENTIRE list of posts.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Hmmm... in accordance to my files... I SENT THIS SAME GODDAMN PROPOSAL TO THE CANADIAN ARMED FORCES R & D ABOUT 18 YEARS AGO!!!! AND ALL THEY SAID WAS "Nice idea, send more info"... DO I LOOK LIKE FUCKING BEL LABS??? They sure didn't want to provide any funding. Maybe my mistake was trying to go through the Canadian forces... I should have sold the idea outside of my own country and they aparently don't give a shit about anything they're own citizens have to offer.
*sigh* (I still have the original submission on file)
If at first you don't feel good.... suffer like the rest of us.
One thing to consider is battle morale.
If you use an remote controlled body, the soldier might just abandon the 'bot when the going gets tough and reroute control to a new one. One 'bot lost.
But if he is INSIDE that thing, he's gonna fight for his ass for good.
So what do you call a gigantic mech tearing through trees and stomping primitive but (formerly) effective booby-traps, huh?
...
It is not hard building primitive but effective traps for these things. All we need is bigger pits - what is it like, stumbling and falling with such a thing? And there are molotov cocktails, steel wire, sticks of dynamite,
It's easier to just have to deal with making the suit, rather then the suit and AI to run it.
The funniest military thing I've heard of was the gun which shot uranium whose kill radius was larger than its range! They actually trained people to use these! (not telling them, of course, and not using live ammo)
I like those too!
If the purpose of the exo is to do heavy-lifting and/or other tough/dangerous stuffs, putting a human inside still mean if accident happens, someone will get hurt, or may even die[...]Instead of putting a LIFE human being at the place of work, why not use the virtual reality technology
Cynical answer: so then the operator will be much more motivated to do the job properly and save the expensive equipment?
> The sheer number of mundane tasks I could accomplish with an exoskeleton is amazing. Why, I could rearrange furniture in the blink of an eye, all while defending the Earth from Evil!
Well and good, but could you keep Windows 9x up for more than 49 days at a time?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There have been a few posts about starship troopers but erhaps what whey are looking for is more laike the stormtrooper kit from Star Wars. In one of the books there is a scene where a trooper uproots a tree singlehandedly so that would definitly count as stronger.
Those kits fit snugly so that it is just like wearing a suit and hopefully not difficult to run. I'm not sure how they countered the center of gravity problem however small increadibly heavy masses in the bottom of the shoes like the ones I've read about for aritficial gravity generation might work.
-- "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Project Grizzly Exo-suit yet. http://www.trillium.net/grizzly/
Get out of here! You've heard of Joe Frank too? Amazing. Most people think I'm just insane.
There's also the question of how directly this system interfaces with the nervous system of the operator. Does it only interact indirectly, with all stimuli being fed to the user via some sort body glove and output being generated by tracking the user's movements? Or does it interact by patching into the nervous system at key points and overriding other nerve signals? Or does it go right to the source and get its input and output directly from the brain? All of these approaches have benefits and drawbacks. The body glove idea has the disadvantage of the latency that the poster I'm replying to was concerned about, simply because, no matter how fast the communication with the teleprescence unit is, it has to be slower than the nervous system because the nervous system hasn't been removed from the equation. There's also the huge engineering problem of how to map the movements of the operator to the teleprescence unit and the sensations of the TU to the body glove. The direct brain connection has the problem that the human brain doesn't control the body as effectively as we think it does. In other words, a huge amount of our movement is controlled by reflexes remembered by parts of our nervous system entirely outside the brain. To compensate, the TU would need to have its own neural net for its own rexflexes and the operator would probably need to spend thousands of hours training with the unit to be able to operate it well. Effectively switching off between two entirely different bodies could cause thus far unknown psychological problems in the operator. The idea of patching into the nervous system at select points, but well away from the brain doesn't fully avoid the latency problem, but it could provide a much more immersive experience than the body glove while avoiding its engineering challenges (not that there aren't huge challenges in patching into the nervous system in a workable manner). The dual body problems would probably be less than with a direct brain connection, though not eliminated, and a long period of adjusting and training would still be required. This solution would probably require a lot more surgery(though probably much safer surgery) than the direct brain connection, as it would require patch-ins at hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the body. With any of these solutions, of course, the frequently used sci-fi plot device of destruction/extreme damage to the remote unit causing neurological damage to the operator is probably a non-issue. Sure, it makes cyperpunk stories a lot more exciting, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too difficult (compared to everything else involved) to filter out any dangerous levels of feedback. Obviously epileptics and the like probably wouldn't make very good operators, of course.
The trouble with all of this is that, if you're going to make a remote controlled fighting machine, why make it anthropomorphic? It makes sense if you're making personal armor that it be shaped like the occupant, but not when you're making a remote controlled device. Admitting the fact that human beings, or at least animals with legs are better on varied terrain than just about any machine that exists today (maybe not if we're talking about small vertical take off/landing hovering devices), machines with wheels or treads beat humans for most practical military purposes. Maybe several classes of remote controlled or even semi-autonomous vehicles could be developed. Warfare would end up being like Command and Conquer or Total Annihilation without the resource gathering or unit manufacturing.
On the other hand, it would obviously be better if we could just get rid of warfare completely. Despite the coolness factor of all this, I'd be much happier with augmentation exosuits and remote robots being used in space or undersea exploration or even plain old terrestrial construction than being used to kill more people faster. I mean, I hear the "it will save [your nationality here] lives" argument, and it's all well and good, but that's usually at the cost of the other guys lives. I would personally love to be able to work on this sort of technology, but not if it's going to be used to kill people.
The reaction time of a person inside is better than a remote control, allowing tricky navigation and other performances.
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individu
Not if you build the exoskeleton to deal with acceleration and decceleration for you. Like giant springs in the shoes :) or something, for an easy landing. Although you'd be suprised at what a human body can withstand - Navy pilots launch off of aircraft carriers at something like 25g's, also astronauts, etc. It's the sudden stop that's the problem, really, and if you spread it out over enough time (seconds rather than milliseconds) it can be done. If you can land a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier without killing the pilot, you can land a person from a few dozen feet...
itachi
Yeah, but it looks like it's just a request for proposals, with the idea being that a few dozen engineering/defense firms will bid some proposals, and one or more will get funding to play with. 50 million USD for an RFP isn't too bad, it's not like they're setting the final price for a fleet of these, including prototyping costs. The DoD spends a lot of money this way - small (relatively speaking) projects that may or may not turn up something useful. If it doesn't turn out to be feasible, then no loss, it's only 50 million USD. To the federal government, that's candy bar money. So yes. But no.
itachi
Inspector Gadget.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Because a human is not used to 'being' a non-humanoid. Telepresencing (is that a word?) into a humanoid body allows a human to use his/her natural instincts and reflexes to control the virtual body, rather than having to think "wings not legs, wings not legs..." all the time. :)
Someone has been reading Battle Tech and/or playing Mech Warrior a little too much
Where can I get one ?
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
He is working on the propulsion parts right now. One of the problems they have with "skins" that make you stronger is that they can crush you. That would suck.
The leaping great heights is done using jet/rocket devices. As for the power problem, I think rotational inertia storage a la Rolex's Oyster Perpetual motion stuff would help if you have the suit "turned off." That could charge the batteries during unpowered walking or during rocket assisted leaping.
I am going to talk with him about working on these projects and maybe submitting a proposal myself.
IANAL, but I play one on
Most of the current proposals call for rockets or other thrusters to propel you to those heights instead of the instantaneous impulse like a normal jump. There are other things that can help the high g-forces if you want the impulse type jump, though (as some posts in this thread have mentioned).
One of my professors is working on these projects right now and has been for awhile. The US military has had stuff in the past, just not what you may consider "exoskeleton." They loosely considered Rocketpacks and things like in Alien(s? when Ripley put on the big loader robot suit thing and kicked the mother's ass) as exoskeletons.
He is working on the propulsion parts right now. One of the problems they have with "skins" that make you stronger is that they can crush you. That would suck. The leaping great heights is done using jet/rocket devices.
IANAL, but I play one on
And then, once I was on the team, I could pound the crap outta the guys that gave me heck.
But what about it being a concealed weapon? :)
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You beat me to it! But, the article you point out is actually about the SpringWalker device, and not the Hardiman.
For those of you who don't know, the Hardiman was built by GE researchers (one is actually pretty famous, though I can't remember his name off the top of my head right now) looking into body amplification techniques for the Navy. The suit they created was IMMENSE. I haven't been able to find any pictures on the net of this suit, but I do have a book or two that shows it (along with the four legged truck that was also built). Wait - maybe the guy's name was Ralph Mosser, or something like that. Anyhow, you have to see pictures of this device to believe it. It looks as good as the exoskeletons depicted in Aliens. I might just take a scan from my book and post it here later...
This device was a good first step. The SpringWalker is another.
We can also see exoskeleton features in the technology and design that went into Robosaurus, as well as in the devices (and controls) used by Survival Research Laboratories (SRL).
I figure we'll see privately developed exoskeletons (or mobile armor, or mechs, or whatever you want to call 'em) long before the military versions (and I bet SRL beats them all!).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The GE resercher's name was Ralph Mosher. That is the correct spelling. Anyhow, I have found two references to him:
One on Scientific American Frontiers. This link has a transcript of what is on the video (the episode you can buy).
The other link is from an article on "Industrial Lingerie" (WTF!? Cute girls, though), on a site called monk.com. The reference is on "page" 2.
Enjoy!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
it just means that they can hook unfit quake trained geeks up to the hardware to do the physical work and have them run around in battle, getting shot at for real.
i will probably never work for defense agencies - they design stuff to kill humans better. unfortunately they design really cool, fun stuff to kill people better.
- tim -= remove "-spam-" from address before spamming =-
Hmmm. One too many high-speed collisions, mayhap?
Intolerant people should be shot.
These wouldn't be giant mechs, they'd be power armour like in Starship Troopers. (say, something on the order of +20% height)
Intolerant people should be shot.
Hey, that biker could be me! (If I was a biker and inclined to hit people with clubs that is)
One of your numbers in 6 is wrong. I'll assume its the 150 feet, in which case the number should've been ~50 feet.
Intolerant people should be shot.
People are expensive? Maybe they _should_ be, but they aren't. What's it cost to train J. Random Grunt? (clothing, feeding, and housing too, I suppose) Power armour would have to be several million bucks a shot. Maybe the Rangers could change their motto to We never leave an exoskeleton behind!
Intolerant people should be shot.
Doesn't the article say something about the exoskel having to beable to be armoured? Plus they want people to beable to go faster, and jump higher, and stay in the suit for at least 4 hours at a stretch.
Intolerant people should be shot.
.4?
How can this list have an entry that isn't a whole number?
Intolerant people should be shot.
Actually I disagree, people ARE expensive. even J. Random Grunt. Sure you've got food, clothing, feeding, housing, medical!, pension... etc... Technology, once its developed (thats the expensive part) is relatively cheap to maintain (no food, less maintenence compared to a person), doesn't age... so forth a so on. Lets do a little math.
Lets say it costs $5M each to build a suit, and it costs $100k a year to maintain it, the development cost is spread out and included in the cost. Also, suits last 10 years, so we'll try a 10 year simulation. Lets say it costs $50k a year to provide for a soldier (salary, food, housing, etc. I think this estimate is VERY low).
If an armoured suit can take the place of 10 soldiers...
Then we have $5M + 10 years *(50k for solider + 100k for maintenence) Thats $6.5M.
The alternative, 10 men for 50k times 10 years, is $5M
So the suit is more expensive by my numbers (which are very round, but show that its not ridiculously out of proportion), but now you have 9 men who aren't soldiers, who will contribute the economy in ways they wouldn't have if they were grunts in the military. Plus less causualties, etc. Think about it... I don't know if its a good idea, but its definitely interesting, and I don't think its too far-fetched...
Spyky
As leaders of the Geek Nation they will serve well under me, Steve, the Emperor of the Universe. Conveinently enough for them, they live just down the road.
It would only be complete if they could transform into a vehicle like the ones in Transformers the Movie.
- Alex
I wonder if they will use some of the designs in Masamune Shirow's magnificent Intron Depot. That thing and it's sequel volume are truly amazing. And. . .inspiring. ^_^
Whoa, with all the advancements in cloning that have been made, we could create a race of "Neo's" that we could throw our Exo-Frames up against!! ROCKIN COOL!
thx113895
Rut-Ro Raggy!
don't forget Matsumune Shirow (sp?) and his Appleseed series. (and to a lesser extent some of his other comics) His illustrations are very well thought out mechanically. They are much closer to Starship trooper type exo-suits than 50ft high Macross/Gundam bots.
Enter The Guyver...!
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Balance has to do with gravity, which is only equivalent to spacial orentation (very) locally.
In other words, if you define a certain direction as "down" with a gyro, then travel to the other side of the earth it will point in EXACTLY the wrong direction.
-Peter
And can you imagine what would happen if you put on the wrong exoskeleton. ( or.. )
aren't you glad this isn't another anime/alien/heinlein comment?
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
This'll cause wars when it comes out. We'll invade the colonies...er... mars.... er ... no the clans will attack... or maybe ... nah... it'll be the bugs....
Why does it seem that every SF involving this sort of robot always seems to focus them on war? Well most of them I haven't really seen any SF out there that has just used an exoskeliton for labour.
If you think about it these things would be useless in a fight. The profile of them would basically make them a target for any decent sized shot. Unless they make them small (no more then 10 feet tall) then they'd be useless. And making them that small mean they can't carry much. For a long time its been a case of who's seen first is the one who loses in a military fight.
That's just me venting, about some SF. These suits would be nice for labour purposes, for the not so fine work, and the heavy work. I don't see them in any of the fine work (every tried soildering with a pair of gloves on?)
Software Engineer & Writer of Military Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog: petermwright.com Twitter: WrightPeterM
Wasn't Gigantor, something large enough to give Godzilla a run for his money, piloted entirely by a kid on the shy side of 10?
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
I want a hydraulic robtic forkliftish suit like th e ones worn in the loading deck in the movie Aliens...
bad-ass
- passion
This is the point where man meets machine. In order for a human to control it efficently then it MUST resemble a human or at least have human traits. Think about it. How would a human know how to operate the helicopter remotely. But if it's a human resemblence, the controler can react much faster because they would be using normal body functions to control the machine. (Plus we can already make a remote controled helicopter)
Of course, we all know which famous scientist is the inspiration for this.
Exactly. The suit doesn't need to be intended for combat. A suit that helps the engineering corps build a bridge without heavy construction equipment would be great. That could allow a division to move across a river much faster than the enemy anticitpates. Just about anything that improves a units ability to traverse obsticals, or bring along less support equipment would be good canidates for this.
Troops using these would probably be best used for fast strikes in rough or urban terrain - imagine somewhere ( eg what was yugoslavia ) where the terrain isnt exactly appropriate for tanks. Thes units would move in quickly, would be too tough for regular infantry to take out ( mount antipersonnel fragmentation grenade launchers for all-round defence ) destroy key enemy weapons and supplies and get out again - thus destroying key enemy resources in a single strike. And because of the size of the armour, it is not limited by the terrain or buildings.
open your mind too much and your brain falls out!
There are options that may work.
Equip the pilot with quick-connect points wired between sensors in the body and his nerves to give some sort of sensory feedback from the exoskeletons outer surface ( appropriate research has already been done to enable people with artificial limbs to have a basic sense of touch ).
Build a neural network in to the motor control system that learns the reactions of its user. This will mean that if anyone else uses that pilots exoskeleton it will not react as well, but it will get better and better the more a particular pilot uses it. ( actually, by using different profiles for different pilots, it would simply be a matter of 'logging on ' as the appropriate profile ). Actuators I'm not sure of, but I seem to remember some recent research on 'polymer muscles' - I'm sure someone can come up with a reference.
For the Armour, how about a skin made up of layers of woven buckmisterfullerine wire - this stuff is tough.
And so it begins...
open your mind too much and your brain falls out!
a fellow goatsecxer !!! :)
We like to think of all of the possibly good uses that would help society to be more productive, but neglect to realize the impact of these tools falling into the hands of those who wish to use it for other than its intended purpose.
Ok, so this might not be a great analogy, but look at Netpliance. They created a product and then people found out they could take advantage of the product's capabilities by modifying it.
The I-openers may be a "toy" but such exonic skeletons certainly are not. Let's imagine an inventor of such a tool envisions studying volcanos or building skyscrapers -- all by remote control.. If the inventor believes he is the only one who would be able to control the droid, he is wrong. If one person can do it, ANYONE can do it. Think of the implications of military applications, from either foreign or domestic governments. If the "good guy" has these tools, the "bad guy" would want it and will get it. If the "bad guy" has it, then the "good guy" should seek the destruction of these tools and manufacturing plants.
In conclusion: economically and politically driven people are not necessarilly intelligent, as their mind is their innovation
END OF MESSAGE, THAT IS ALL!
No, not all. I don't.
GO PAT GO!!!!
Buchanan Reform
We've got tanks that can roll over landmines, and the worst thing that happens to the crew is they wet their pants
Actually the only way an Abrams tank crew knows when they've hit a land mine is when they run off the track a couple seconds later.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
This is perhaps one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. Lets design a piece of potentially lethal military equipment through the internet. That way there's no security and no way to provide it. In fact you probably can't tell if the other guys on your team are working for the CIA, the Iraqi's, or Erols internet.
Not only that, but in the end practically anyone can get the final design and build it if they have the resources. That means any third world dictator can make one. And, since most third world dictators are in power because the military supports them, they actually have R&D budgets. Hussein payed the greatest ballistic scientist of this century to develop a gun capable of shooting things to orbit. He would have succeeded if Masad hadn't killed the scientist and the US hadn't destroyed his cannon in the Gulf War before it was assembled.
Also, since the plans are freely broadcast you can pinpoint all the weaknesses of the system before if sees combat. You are now able to pick and choose the best weapons to kill it and its operator...
Information is power and power misused kills. Sometimes secrecy and censorship is necessary not to oppress the masses but to protect them from things which are far worse than lack of speech. Things like lack of life.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Not sure where to stick this, but this is as good a place as any.
The general sentiment seems to be that everyone wants this new exo-skeleton/remote whatever etc. to be the be-all-end-all of robotics. I think the people designing this have one specific goal in mind, and are trying to meet that goal, and have an exoskeleton capable of meeting that goal as best it can. Where a remote solution might lag behind, be too much for that goal, or what not. Would you really want a remote mech to re-arrange your furniture, where it might bump, and break, that vase, or grab it too hard. This is where a exo-skeleton would come in handy. But another, completely different, situation, and thus a completely different solution, would be mine sweeping, radio active cleanup, etc. This would be where the remote mechs would come in handy, it wouldnt matter if they were "slightly clumsy", defined as they dont have the "unlimited" senses and inputs that a human has, plus the ever increasinlgy complex human brain as a driver for these inputs.
Erase
.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Oh, no offense at all. Or at least, verbal offense. The offensive possibilities of a anime-fan-modified exoskeleton, on the other hand...
Now the only problem is getting them up to the proper size... And getting ahold of weapons like beam sabers and rail guns....
-RickHunter
--"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star."
--Gray council, Babylon 5.
Will there be a super-powerful variety made out of gundanium?
This is really cool. Military technology leaks down to the population eventually. This makes the future that much cooler.
no
Its more like a belly laugh. :)
no
Well, I can think of some people I certainly hope can never lift a car one handed. The bastards did quite a number on my vheicle's paintjob with just a set of keys.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
it could be like that lifter thing in Aliens. Those things were cool looking, are probably quite feasible, and can be used to kill acid blooded creatures.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I'll bet some DARPA topdog rented Alien II and has the hots for Sigourney Weaver.
no sig.
http://www.sainc.com/DARPA/EHPA/ contains a slightly more readble mirror of the proposal, as well as some information of putting together teams to work on the project.
/. team? :)
...MoO!
Anyone want to put together the official
Ok. How small can you get a hybrid engine? You know - one of those new ones like they used for the new Honda Insight.
Is it possible to get a version of it small enough to fit in a back pack? Can you silence it?
I'm sure it doesn't have to be completely quiet.
At least not all the time. Just set it up so you can run off of battery some of the time. The problem with that is, DC motors are much larger and heavier. You could always use an AC generator on an engine or turbine. The problem is how?
Maybe you can set up a highly efficientelectrolysis reaction. That would allow you to create Oxygen for breathing and Hydrogen for burning. (I'm hoping that there is a safer way than the Hindenberg for storing H2 now.)
Power is definitely the problem. If that can be solved, I've already been looking into Servos. They can be activated into 2 different configurations - speed and power. Servo amplifiers for speed and servo reducers for power. Not as fast, but a buttload more strength.
Just a few thoughts.
WLWM^2: Why Do Liberals Waste My Money?
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
Well, I think it would be tough for the open source community to get their hands on the tools necessary to even build the battle armor, much less to design the "seamless integration of human with machine" (paraphrasing). Plus, where are we going to get the weapons systems to accompany this baby? It's not something you pick up at the hardware store! I think this is best left to the pros. (Of course, I work for a very large gov't contracting company, so I might be the tiniest bit biased. ^_^)
When you're crushing a man's windpipe with your knee, you can be sure he will attempt to bite you.
Man, all this puts me in the mood for a game of Metal Gear.
When you're crushing a man's windpipe with your knee, you can be sure he will attempt to bite you.
Why bother with exoskeletons When a Big Giant Mech sould step on/crush the stupid guy in the Exoskeleton. It could be sort of the same thing but jut MUCH bigger. The controls could be made such that moving the mech would be very much like just moving your self...
"Maggie call Aquaman!!!"
Satellites suffer from the same problem, but they still manage to keep their antennas pointing to Earth at all times by precessing or by using star sensors and earth sensors that give you the pointing direction with respect to what you need in order to keep you direction. So I guess they can use some fixed object like a building to use as an attitude reference. There might also be problems with ground roughness but this cannot be detected even by human balance, but only by the feeling in your feet.
You keep stuff balanced with gyros. Modern gyros are nanomachines that when started point to the same point in the universe for like a 1000 years. Fighter planes have them and satellites have a bunch of these. The newest ones levitate on a magnetic field and are damn accurate. Should we even say better than human balance control?
I don't want to get all Katzy here, but we should consider all the things that can go wrong. This shows what can happen if, say, you put on The Wrong Trousers. (Even has a penguin.)
There is a company now offering a product that attaches to the side of your head via a headset and sends signals that "mess" with your inner ear, giving you a sense of motion in a particular direction. While it's intent is to help people keep from getting sick while playing Quake/et al in my mind it would work equally as well for other virtually reality control situations as suggested. On the other hand we could just hook the pilots up to a gyroscope like in LawnMower Man! :)
Many companies are selling head mounted displays and other HUD type units that could easily be used in the exoskeleton and provide for a wide range of viewing and enhancement without needing to expose the pilot to danger. See Sony and Xybernaut.
This is not the first time that Exoskeletons have been studied. NASA has for some time had a program and several prototypes of exoskeletons for use in space.
Advances in current limb prosthetics will also aid in the exoskeleton projects. Newer prosthetics are becoming more responsive and allowing for sensations such as heat, cold, and pressure. They are also finding better ways to control the prosthetic such as picking up direct electrical signals from the body or simply responding faster to muscle tensioning. In, of all places, Oklahoma Not exactly a place known for technological innovation (my home state).
Some other points to bring up are the issues of emergent behaviour in robotic devices. I.E. Several projects around the world have shown that you may program an AI or robot to perform a particular task and that while that task is performed another behaviour (not programmed) may emerge that aids in the tasks completion. Hence "ducking" or "charging" or even self sacrafice may emerge from the programming. As these behaviours emerge humanity will begin to become attached to these robots, despite their original purpose.
Semi-Autonomous vehicles are already ready for production. Vehicles like the "Fire-Ant", which is basically a four wheeler with anti-tank rockets. It's designed so that a human pilot can strategically place it or even guide it to a target, but it can choose it's target on it's own and/or lie in wait for a target to come by. Of course the best display of semi-autonomy to date was the Pathfinder mission. Some of the newer NASA Missions are pushing this idea even further.
Other communications ideas are coming to light such as research into physics which show that you can have a partical in two places at once. If you change the partical at one physical location that partical also changes at the second location simultaneously. This could allow for instantaneous communication worldwide without the need for wires, signals that could be hacked or blocked, or transmission lag. I think this falls into the somewhat trekkie realm of "sub-space communications". Which I think someone recently tried to patent.
just my two cents.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Just as long as you don't make it scriptable. The last thing I need is for some script kiddie to hijack the suit if I run Microsoft Outlook on the heads-up display.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
Hehe, I especially like this one:
But then again, $50M in funding ain't nuttin' to sneeze at. Anybody got a spare mech suit lying around? ;)
merge an automated exoskeleton with the RealDoll and i'll never have to work at getting laid again!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Erm... one of the items was too small to count as an entire entry...
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
on my "I Saw It on Slashdot and Now I Want One" list...
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
It does not have to be something as extreme as a bear suit. There should be different versions of the suit used for different reasons. A suit that adds strength does not have to add strength to all muscles, it maybe something that looks like Exosceleton from Alians. A suit that helps you to jump high or far away may need a gyroscope a pair of fins and some rocket boosters on your legs (Mario brothers :)
You can't handle the truth.
wow, its amazing, thats the first thing that popped into my and my roommates mind when we say the headline!
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
the great part about putting a person inside is that you don't need a very powerful computer, as you already have a 3.5lb gray one. a human could use his sense of balance and just control the suit, like in alien 2. also, just make to suit tough enough, and if you drop a car on your head, it wouldn't hurt.
Speaking of exoskeletons and Heinlein, I'm sure many of you are familiar with Starship Troopers (the book, not that horrid film!). In it are the gorilla suits, exoskeletons which eliminate the "heavy clothing" problem by simply making every muscle movement you make ten times more powerful.
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
"To meet the challenges set forth, DARPA is soliciting devices and machines that accomplish one or more of the following: 1) assist pack-loaded locomotion, 2) prolong locomotive endurance, 3) increase locomotive speed, 4) augment human strength, and 5) leap extraordinary heights and/or distances." Taken from the document online. Look at number 3. Are we looking at jetpack-technology? Sweet. And, did you notice? There is no size limitation on these...oh, lets use the term `Mechs. The future commonly does follow the path of science-fiction... And, one more thing. Did you notice that they kapt using the word "locomotive"? They could have said movement. I think that whoever drew that up just wanted to outline "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a LOCOMOTIVE, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound..." That sort of thing.
I wouldn't use it to crush my enemies, I'd use it to impress chicks.
I had the same thought, that it's like Starship Troopers, and that led me to the second thought I had - would we really be too far away from Heinlen's (sp?) military? Sci-fi-ing out on this, a miniature nuclear reactor would provide almost endless power for one of these suits for the life of the suit (although, in practice it'll probably have some kind of glorified laptop battery in it). That opens the door for missions longer than the timeframe listed on the site (4-24 hours). That, then, opens the door for sleep-deprivation research of Vietnam to come back (maybe). Granted, I may be a little paranoid (& the stories I've heard about sleep deprivation could be false, too :), but it seems to me Heinlen was a little worried about technology outsripping our social conscience... and that's a little worrisome to me, too.
On the other hand, it'll lower the death toll in battle. Just think about what would happen when the "bad guys" saw the first wave of American Mechs headed towards them :) Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court :)
Of course, as others have mentioned, think about the uses in real life. Guy gets stuck under a flipped car? No prob, just have an emt in a mech suit move the vehicle. Of course, by the time it's viable, medical technology will get so small that an arsenal of diagnostic equipment will fit in the spaces between actuators. And then there's the stripped down technology that could be used in spinal injury patients, etc.
I guess it's all a question of the benfits outweighing the disadvantages, like always :)
-Elendale (Wants Unit 03. Gimme!)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
I don't really see this being used by the military that much. More likely it will be bought by geeks like us for no real reason other than to have one.
-Elendale (Of course I want one. What did you think?!)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
The toughest problem has to be the power source. It has to have a very high energy density, and right now, there's no tech really suitable for that.
The dollar figure stated in the brief was 50 million. Isn't that chump change for a US government military contract, especially one of this magnitude?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
I'll hold my breath and wait for lithium to get better. If they can figure a way for it to stop buring up when used in large quantities, then it would work.
I want my Cowboyneal
Why don't you learn how to spell before you type? You can't do a decent trolling if nobody understands what you said.
Perception is reality
Why must you constantly curse this posting with your awful grammer and bad manners?
Perception is reality
Louis Wu
Thinking is one of hardest types of work.
Of course, it wouldn't affect guerrila warfare.
So what do you call a gigantic mech tearing through trees and stomping primitive but (formerly) effective booby-traps, huh?
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
jezus, dont get all anal about it okay
I couldn't stop thinking of the movie Alien with Sigourney Weaver, remember the scenes where she's inside the giant robot.. very cool scene at the end when she's fighting the Alien and saves the child and android.
This is (potentially) the US military we're talking about. If a grunt gets his head blown off, the government has effectively lost the several thousand dollars spent to train that grunt. The government rounds dollar amounts to the nearest million, which is zero in this case.
By contrast, even an unimpressive artificial soldier would cost at least a million bucks. The US government would never put that much money on the line when a cheap, expendible soldier would do. Yeah, remote control people might exist, but not as a replacement for the everyday grunt.
At least, not until machines start having babies and women realize that sperm causes wrinkles.
---
That's the whole point... You could mount larger missiles that normally would only be seen on vehicles. It doesn't have to be carried, it could be shoulder mounted, etc, complete with its own radar system. Air power would then have to deal with more than just handheld missiles, in theatres where only infantry and handhelds are expected.
Also, a power-armor'd infantry man could carry recoiless rifles and small calibre cannons as easily as your footsolider carries his M16.
See, it isn't that hard!
Look! Here's another one!
A choice of masters is not freedom
Oy, of all the spacewar out there, finally someone thinks of the one I really liked. Forever War was way cooler then Starship Troopers. (for those who are confused, we're talking novels here)
No there wouldn't. A modern top-knotch caseless assault rifle can go clean through a tank, to say nothing of more anti-tank oriented weapons, particularly the big heavy kind you can mount on this exoskeleton. I liked Gundam as much as the next guy, but its not gonna happen. Either way, aren't we forgetting one little thing: we've got enough things to kill each other as it is? Still, this does have other aplications, any high-risk high-cost environment could use an overarmoured exoskeleton.
...Elemental battle-armor from BattleTech / MechWarrior. That stuff carries a couple of short range missles and a submachine gun (and a laser, but let's keep it as what could be done *soon*) It's controled using a body suit covered in sensors, that pass body movement to the armor, which then responds. That could probably be used here, with current tech. It also controls the computer with a 'glance' system - the cursor follows the pilot's eye movement. IIRC, that is used in various helicopter gunships already. Elemental armor comes with a claw capable of ripping armor of tanks / etc. That would be almost worse than the missiles. It can also jump about 90 meters, using jets. Yet another example of this stuff in Sci-fi. I so much want one of these. Would solve the traffic problem in the mornings... Maran
Gimme massive surgery, some chemical and drug treatments, maybe a nanotech infusion (if I'm lucky), and about a year to recover. Subdermal armor, hardened skeletal structure, and synthetic tendons/muscles jacked into a nervous system hyped up by metered stimulant dispensers and directed by a brain/tactical computer interface. Leave the weapons external though - makes for easier repair/replacement/upgrade/compatibility. So I'll live half as long - at least I'll kick some ass while I'm around.
Small problem with the commercial use of these things. Do you really think that the Government will let the commercial world (let alone individuals) actually purchase one of these things... I don't think so... Atrox
- Love all computers...
Ever heard of the submarine ???? (This should rate a 7. succint .. to the point .. and without real content ... i.e /. perfection)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Will people make that "Wang-gang-gang-gang" sound like the Six Million Dollar Man?
Seems like they took this right out of superman. How possible would this be, especially while maintaining the compact power source? Imagine, soon clone exoskeletons would be made, and there could be a rebirth of hand to hand combat.
I've built a series of arms and arm-shoulders, and some miserable stilt devices. These are all bicycle cable, wood, foam, and lots of prethreaded rod. The best arm-shoulder I've ever built gives me about a 54" reach instead of my usual 28" reach from shoulder socket to fingertip. When its well adjusted, I can light a match or pick up a dime, when its not well adjusted its like a chastity belt for my arm. Your shoulder/arm/hand has more degrees of freedom than Descent, and you use most of them. Somebody at a party WILL ask you to duplicate a Vulcan hand salute, and then tell you that Terminator 2 could do it. If my new hand can't bring a drink to my mouth, then 80% of the fun and usefullness goes away. Its surprisingly hard to get a useful range of motion with the elbow cocked and with the elbow extended. Making sure that theres no place in between where some joints become unconstrained is a real challenge. Every thing I've ever built or could build would only serve to get me killed or hurt quicker in a fight. Any fight. Much quicker. Get the weight to your torso. A shoulder blade mounted exo-arm is hugely superiour to a forearm mounted extension. Getting the weight down to your hips like a good backpack is the best. If I built a big powered Mech, I'd sit in the groin, not the head. The only external power I've ever built in was a servo inside an opposing finger/thumb, to crush beer bottles. It was worth it, despite the weight and battery life problems. I needed stilts to make the proportions right. My first attempts were miserable. Go now, to a used tool store, and buy sheetrock stilts. They work unbelievably well. Your next costume will disturb people. Having a really long reach is surprisingly useful. I've actually changed lightbulbs and other small tasks with my arms. (Total time saved)/(time spent building them) 0.001. I went to a party, with an arm, stomping around much bigger than life, and letting other people try it on. A good pair of married friends were looking at me without saying much, so I pulled it off of me and made her put it on. All she did was put the "hand" on his shoulder and look him straight in the eye, and the rest of us started sweating and stammering. They borrowed the arm for a few days and nothing else was ever said. I suspect the specialty civilian market is small but loyal
Peace.
Instead of having it go "BOOM" as outlined above, why not just have a large quantity of thermite inside that will ignite and melt all the internal circuitry (at the high temperature thermite burns at)
The answer is simple. It would be more expensive to build a completely remote-controlled droid, and human life is cheap. The military would much rather lose a human than a $2M droid.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It is refreshing to see that the science community also reads sci-fi and can see the feasability in building something like this. As for a concern addressed in another post:
-Making "exo-droids" would be an option to preserve human life, but you lose the flexability/instant decision making capablilty of having a human on site, plus the independancy of an indivual soldier.
I think this would be a cool idea. The actual suits wouldn't have to be tremedously huge (i.e. Gundams or Mech or HERC's) but could be small units pieced together around a soldier or worker utilizing pneumatics to increase strength (or a metallic muscle fiber desgin I saw once) or simply provide more protection for dangerous tasks such as chemical spill cleanup, bomb disposal, nuclear facility maintainence, etc... The uses for such devices extend far beyond the battlefield.
-ParadoX-
"Ludo tuo animo!"
And it really does seem feasible by existing technology. I don't know how useful it would be, if it were built with existing tech, but it could still be done. So you have a set of hydraulics tied into haptic feedback devices strapped on, and you've got the strength of a bulldozer or backhoe- but applying that strengh might be as clumsy, if you're driving a human-shaped piece of construction equipment. Now think of how slow and lumbering you'd be walking around, nevermind if you're carrying 2 tons on one shoulder or not.
So I believe it can be done, absolutely. DARPA is just looking for someone to do it, if for nothing else than to figure out where the shortcomings and limitations are so that R&D can be directed at them. Whether or not it will be useful on the battlefield, I think even a clumsy exoskeletal suit has better applications in society. Imagine if you will:
EMT use their exoskeletal hands in lieu of the Jaws of Life to extract people from car wrecks.
Firefighters with truly no fear of fire.
Rescue workers who can lift and toss aside boulder-sized chunks of concrete and entire steel girders when looking for earthquake survivors.
I hope that the technology developed has a civilian counterpart released just as soon. Maybe there will only be a civilian version initially, especially if the only way to solve the power-source problem is to use an Evangelion style extension cord. ;)
-Cryptomancer, fully caffeinated.
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
But then you've lost your mech. All the bad guys would have to do is create a burst of static long enough for the comunications to time-out and sudenly your entire army has shut itself down. You going to send some guy out there to do a hard reboot on all of them?
Actually, if I were an evil overlord being attacked by such a robo-army, I think my solution would be to create a burst of static, etc, as outlined above. But instead of waiting for Tom the Repair Guy to come hit all the "Reboot" buttons... Why not take'em? Free robot army! Just laying around! Then I could reprogram them at my leisure in my secret base deep benieth the Atlantic!
The moral of this story is that you probably would want at least SOMETHING inside capable of going "boom", otherwise someone will just come along and take it.
Of course, you also don't want it going boom TOO easily, or Mr. evil overlord could just send a burst of static, and watch the legions of "Justice-Droids" pop like grapes in a microwave.
Nice reference to 'The State'. I thought I was the only one that remembered it. . .
I know another exoskeleton which does the trick of preserving the kinetic energy instead of dissipation it: the bicycle.
Hmm...
Well, to have a human inside would give the ultimate in functional control, probably something that remote operation could not quite give you.
I find the potential for para- and quadriplegics to be enormous though. Much like technology tested by the space program spills over into medicine, this sort of technology could have tremendous applications in medicine as well.
-Larry
Maybe, with the help of "X-Men the movie" (nothing to do with XFree86), the American public will aggree the govermnent must finance such project.
--- Bouh !!! ---
I can understand why DoD researchers are looking for new ideas. They have been working on Powered Armor since the mid eighties. A project called Pittman. I don't know the signifigance of the name but the designers bumped into a lot of problems.
The armor was seriously underpowered and as a result it was under armored and too lightly armed.
Powered armor infantry would have a decent go at Light Infantry. But Mechanized Infantry with their heavier weapons would eat a Pittman for lunch. Not to mention heavier armored vehicles.
So the design process has been going on for the last two decades. But now I believe we have what it takes to make a practical Powered armor.
It would still be expensive, but you won't use them like regular infantry. They will be used as a shock force where armored vehicles can not go or if said vehicles are not available.
They would make very poor special forces combat systems. Which was the original idea behind the Pittman suit.
Enough blabbing on my part 8)
-- What's this '-r *' file doing here? -- Oh well, a simple 'rm' should do the trick.
Mckibben artifical muscles.
hot grit protection, finally
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
i'm not oog, just a big fan
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
If you find that interesting, check this out... http://xlem.hypermart.net
You all HAVE to check this out. You'll like it.
http://xlem.hypermart.net Did I mention it's FREE?
A sudden stop in one of those would be a spectator event, methinks. 30 - 0 in 500 decibels.
Couple of points. First, I'd be interested in seeing how much extra mass would be needed to EMP-harden a suit like that. I'd hate to be trapped on a battlefield inside a suit of suddenly-unpowered power armor. Second, a strategic consideration: a reduced force of mechanically-enhanced soldiers would be approximately the equivalent of an equal number of tanks...this is great for blowing things up, but while you can take territory with armor, you can't hold onto it very well.
I just read the proposal and at first I thought it was a hoax! These people are serious! I don't know whether to be flabbergasted or laugh my ass off! As if Americans aren't lazy enough already...let's build a suit that does what your God-given body can do. While they're doing that does anybody have the formula that I can take to become Stretch Armstrong? I also need somebody to come over and help me put my Gobot back together? Ha ha ha! LOL!
tim burton remaking planet of the apes? is any one as ascrared as i am?
I like the idea because you basically have to come up with all-new technology. Power source, power train, and actuators need to be completely replaced with technology we don't have in order to make the result any smaller than a tank. Giant Robots for Everyone!
Non-computer research tends to be a lot slower than computer hardware or software development, so the exoskeleton they want won't be possible for decades. But the kind of software they want would be great for a highly mobile minitank.
Think Patlabor military labors. Put electric wheels at the end of 4 articulated legs. Drive the thing with a turbine/generator and hydraulics. Then develop the software needed to coordinate sensors and actuators at superhuman speed.
You get an armored vehicle that can drive cross-country at 100kph -- basically a cybernetic horse. Call it mechanized cavalry...
When they get gadgets that permit reasonably-sized exoskeletons, the software will be ready for them.
That was the Davy Crockett.
It was a 75mm bazooka on a tripod or a Jeep and it had a bug squash head nuke warhead. If I was at home I have a book with a bucha info about it. It was withdrawn after about two years in server.
"An operator inside of an exoskeleton has
several advantages that your typical
remote-control model lacks."
And it has several of disadvantages too.
A. An android will not get emotional. That is,
an android will not be disturbed by his
girlfriends being "shagged" by another man,
or his mother-in-laws' keeping tab on his
bedroom behavior or whatever.
An android will just do whatever it is
ordered to.
B. An android will not take coffee break.
C. An android will not need pay hike, and it
will not strike if the working condition is
not ideal.
There wouldn't be an android branch of
AFL-CIO.
D. An android will not become a spy for a
foreign and perhaps potentially hostile
regime.
E. If an android is "killed", it is just a
broken machine. Just like your old XT which
is not working anymore - you just throw it
in the trash.
Now let's take at the advantages you have pointed out -
"First is more control and depth of input.
A person inside of one these would have
depth perception, periphrial vision, and
(assuming the machine's not too loud) audio.
Also, being inside allows for more control
over how the input is managed (eye
movements, etc.)
Unless the human inside the droid has a direct "open-window" interface to the outside - the human operator inside the exo-droid will "see" and "hear" through the video camera(s) and microphone(s) mounted outside. Perception-wise, it is no different from a human operator in remote location, controlling the exo-droid via virtual-reality.
If there is an "open-window" interface for the operator, then the human operator inside the exo-droid will be vulnerable to bio and/or chemical attacks.
If you insulate the operator from such a thing, then, the operator will have to "perceive" the world out there like I have just outlined above.
The "eye-movement" detector that you mentioned could be used in the remotely-controlled virtual-reality settings as well.
"Second, a human being, as an operator,
will be able to handel an exoskeleton
far more intuitivly than a remote-virtual
body. This will result in far less
training than would otherwise be needed.
We all know how to work a body."
True, if you put a human being inside the exo-droid, the "handling aspect" will be more intuitive, but, the human-operator will also have to face with everything that the "intuitive" things brings - including the direct blow if the droid falls down, and so on, and so forth.
But, if you think that putting a human being inside the exo-droid will mean a more responsive droid, I don't think so.
Imagine yourself without cloth on, and then, imagine yoruself with many layers of clothes on. Tell me in which case do you feel more agile, or easier to move about?
A person inside an exo-droid will be feeling like a person with VERY, VERY THICK cloths on. You can't move as easily, you don't feel that you are as agile as before, and each and every movement you make will be a chore.
Whether or not putting a human being inside the exo-droid, the droid will not be as agile as a living thing, at least not in the level of technology we have today.
"Third, you gotta admit, it's pretty damn
cool. It feeds out monkey-egos to
personally be able to pick up the
car/steel beam/whatever. You just can't
get that kind of rush via remote..."
True, the feeling would be awesome. But then, what we need is a tool that do heavy lifting and something that can do dangerous work for us, we need no egoistic operators acting like robocop, wrecking havoc to the ordinary citizens.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Because its a pain in the ass to build a robot that is bipedal and has as wide a range motion/mobility as human being.
Instead of putting a LIFE human being at the place of work, why not use the virtual reality technology into work, and operate the exo-droid virtually - via remote control.
I suspect that while, pilots may be replaced more easily (i.e. sooner) than human ground troops, It will eventually happen. The problem for the exo-droid is that the human form + brain, though fragile is still much too versitle to be replaced completely. Most of the AIish projects that I've seen take a lot of space/energy/effort just replicating one or two of the features that are build into the sack of water that is the human body. Yes there is a japanese company that has robot that can walk up and down stairs... But can it crouch, sideslip, and jump or climb over obstacles?
--locust
If I remember rightly, the problem then was the same problem as would afflict a modern-day exoskeleton - lack of a compact, efficient, and sufficiently powerful energy source. They tried compressed air, which only gave ten or so minutes of marching.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You know what the Superfriends are doing, right?
Watchin' the game, havin' a Bud...
DARPA: Do All Rightwing Assholes Post Anonymously?
I can believe that an exoskeleton could be built with hydraulics and/or electric motors. The trick is coming up with a compact power source that will run the suit for some reasonable amount of time. Maybe they could use something like the APU used on the Space Shuttle. It weighs about 90 pounds and produces 135 horsepower. The downside is that it runs on hydrazine, which is very nasty stuff.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Does anyone remember that Bear Suit article from several months back? Does anyone have any updates on it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Re-read the requirements. They're not asking for a complete battle ready exosuit, they're just asking for a machine that can do one or more of the following:
1) Allow the user to carry a heavy load.
2) Reduce the effort expended by a soldier on a long hike, thereby increasing endurance.
3) Allow a person to walk or run faster than normal.
4) Allow a person to lift a heavy object, or do strenuous work with reduced effort.
5) Jump higher and/or further than normal.
Things like armor, weapons, environmental controls, communications, etc., aren't required or requested. DARPA just wants a basic exoskeleton to augment the human body, with a braindead simple way to operate it. Development of the other systems will come later, they're just looking for a base platform to start with.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
I want a Zero 1 personally, or maybe a Talgeese. Geez, the fun I could have with a Gundam. The idea of human augmentation is a very good one, a single platoon could have the fighting capability of an infantry battalion. The drawbacks to more technological solutions are that a single soldier will cost millions of dollars to train and outfit. IIRC and M-16A1 (the front-line assult rifle of the US military) costs close to 16 thousand dollars per unit. How much would a basic exoskeleton cost? If a single soldier costs 100 million dollars they aren't going to use them. For 100 million dollars they could outfit several companies worth of standard foot infantry. Would a single exo-soldier be equivilent to a company of foot infantry? I doubt it, a mobile exoskeleton couldn't be too heavily armoured even with Chobham armour. A well places RPG or AT-4 would send one soldier and 100 million dollars worth of exoskeleton to the scrap heap.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Take the bear suit, add some actuators or hydraulics to move the limbs, throw on a weapon and your ready to kick some ass! :)
Q.
Well, he could put a giant "laser" on the moon, and call it the "alan parsons project".
Wow... when the Slashdot Effect becomes more than even .mil sites can handle, you know you've got a world power in the making... can you say "Geek Nation"? I can see it already... Rob as the Benevolent Dictator, Jeff as the Consultant for Kewl Nanotech Stuff. JonKatz would be in charge of the State Religion, of course. I think I'd be very happy there, as long as the Moderation Militia kept all the hot grits people away from my pants... and as long as federal law made sure that Bjarne Stroustroup would be shot at sight!
Seriously, is the site actually slashdotted (of course, it may not be when you read this) or is it my DNS's fault?
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
If there is a VR presence, as the original poster suggested, the human controller won't know that the helicopter isn't a humanoid interface.
The OI, as it were, hides that fact. The user thinks he's moving naturally, and the system compensates for him, appropriately.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Someone can hijack the frequency/control, perhaps, and take over the body?
There isn't the bandwidth to transmit the signals, sensations, and control data?
If it's remote, why make it manlike, then? Why not, say, a small helicopter?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Ohhh yeah. No more getting my butt kicked by the Queen Alien after she rips Bishop in half and sends that annoying little half-pint Newt into the access tunnels. No siree. Next time I find myself in THAT situation I'll just don my ARPA funded, Catepillar built, lemon yellow power armor and KICK SOME XENOLOGICAL BOOTAY!
It's gotta have the welding torch, though. It's useless without the welding torch. A Queen Alien can withstand grendades, bullets, flame throwers, evil looks, and even a thermonuclear explosion, but the sight of a 1.5" long yellow flame causes her to have a coniption fit.
From reading the article, a proposal could involve something fairly simple: If you can come up with a way to reduce the stress on the human body when moving while carrying a load, it would qualify. I'm sure a very basic exoskeleton that simply augments carrying ability (reduces strain on the human skeleton) is easily feasible given today's technology. Interesting they have $50M to throw at this sort of problem.
Too bad I don't have a background in biomechanics or mechanical engineering...
-- Jeremiah
Ladies and Gentlemen (and trolls), I give you the SpringWalker Not a bad base to build from, eh?
Does anyone remember the exoskeleton that Ripley used in Alien? That big yellow walker in the cargo bay of the ship? Did anyone happen to notice the old Caterpillar logo on the walker? Caterpillar as in the construction equipment manufacturer.
An android will not get emotional.
The idea of emotionless androids is good for Star Trek plots, but it doesn't work in the real world. You would end up with an andriod with virtually no ability to select among goals (e.g., "duck!" or "charge!"), and less ability to create novel goals (e.g., blow up the bridge to stop the tanks). It would be nice if pop science to catch up to at least late-60's AI in this regard.
An android will not become a spy for a foreign and perhaps potentially hostile regime.
The same has been said of computers. Hopefully it would be a little less false in this case.
If an android is "killed", it is just a broken machine.
People get quite attached to their machines; cars have provided ample opportunity to study this in the wild. The situation would probably be worse with such a intimate relationship between the operator and the machine. Plus, if the cost of the machine is too high, it would be cheaper to lose soldiers (though it would have to be very high--I'm always suprised when I see how much it costs to train a grunt, let alone a technically adept grunt).
Perception-wise, it is no different from a human operator in remote location, controlling the exo-droid via virtual-reality.
Not quite. Visual and auditory feeds can be recreated faithfully, but balance and, to some extent, posture and other body-centered senses are more tricky. In fact, I'm not sure how balance could be recreated without actually knocking the operater on the floor when the suit fell over, which IMO is not terribly desirable. (OK, that inner-ear thing from a month or so ago would work, but that would require the operator to be seated, which would mean off-loading all of the details of navigating terrain to the robot itself.)
If there is an "open-window" interface for the operator, then the human operator inside the exo-droid will be vulnerable to bio and/or chemical attacks.
How? What's wrong with a transparent sheet of glass or one of those nifty LCD window-with-HUDs they were thinking of using on tanks a few years back? I consider a car a pretty open interface, but it can sealed against bio/chem weapons without impairing your view any.
A person inside an exo-droid will be feeling like a person with VERY, VERY THICK cloths on. You can't move as easily, you don't feel that you are as agile as before, and each and every movement you make will be a chore.
This is an assumption. A major part of this project seems to be retaining, or even enhancing, the agility of he user. If the net result was what you described, why in God's name would DARPA be working on it as an infantry rig? Infantry lives on mobility, not armor, and trying to reverse that would be a death sentence. DARPA isn't stupid, you know; they aren't going to ask soldiers to wear tanks everywhere they go.
And you left out the problem of lag. I can tell you from personal experience that even a hundred milliseconds makes a big difference in 'combat' situations (like Quake ;-). You would probably pick up that much just in the transition from the operater's controls to transmitter, let alone the time it takes for the stupid mech to interpret the message, act on it and respond. If you're fighting a live opponent (e.g., a TOW) and lose, say, 500msec, it could ruin you whole day. (Apparently tanks can dodge anti-tank rockets if they see them coming and have time to move; there was something about it on some .mil site I passed through several months ago. Very cool.)
All of that said, I do think that unmanned is the wave of the future. However, I'm betting on semi-autonomous vehicles where humans 'crews' are, at most, offering tactical and strategic advise to the drones. (Though I do think they will be in the field, for practical reasons.) Deathmatches are great fun, but if I need to get something done give me good old-fashioned real-time strategy ;-)
although I can imagine the first round of test subjects tearing off their own face as they scratch their nose or breaking their leg as they swat a bug on their knee.
It's just such a cool idea. How about a macho looking one for those romantic evenings at home with the misses wouldn't go astray either. Or a beafy one to take down the pub and tear the bouncer a new orifice. The possibilities are endless!!
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
Open Source would not be as popular if Window$ was GPLed
But if windows was GPLed, it would be Open Source, and therefore, opensource would be just as popular (maybe), now wouldn't it?
think about it...
I just finished Starship Troopers a few weeks ago (super quick read, read it at the bookstore!) and this was the first thing i thought when I read this book. Sure we need another half century of development, but its not far-fetched at this point.
The thing thats really neat about Starship Troopers is that the coordinated team of MI (mobile infantry), maybe a few dozen, doesn't really give specifics, in their suits, can level a whole city.
What it means in practical terms is a single (expensive) suit and a well trained mobile infantry men can take the place of 10s maybe hundreds of infantry men. Making for a much smaller military, and military budget (its people who are expensive after all).
Really neat stuff, will be really interesting to see what happens during out lifetimes.
Spyky
They've been doing this stuff since the fifties.
They used to call 'em "Man Amplifiers" (which dates them to before the Women's Lib movement.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The Alien II forklift-armor was inspired by the previous generation of powered-suit research by the military - with a little obvious extrapolation.
Remote-control master-slave manipulators and the like dates from Heinlein's story "Waldo", back about world war II
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's tough to get the balance right for a walker, without being in it or being suspended and thrown around to mimic the slave's movements in a remote control center.
The latter is a bit safer - but a lot more expensive, and you can still get broken by it if something goes wrong and the limits don't function adequately (or maybe a sprain even if they do work).
That being said, there's a lot you could avoid by running it remotely (as you demonstrate with your landmine example). Working inside a radioactive, toxic, or biohazard environment come to mind, as does deep-sea, vacuum, earth-to-near-orbit, near-orbit-to-lander, etc.
But many of those have been anticipated as well.
See Heinlien's _Waldo_ for several of them. There's a story from similarly long ago by another author where the remote was biological, adapted for a methane environment, and controlled from orbit, etc.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's a thought, true enough, but I don't think that's what they're really looking for. They're looking, not for invulnerable humans, but for stronger, faster, and deadlier humans. Without either a) a massively heavy base, or b) an incredibly complex motor-system AI to keep center of gravity, the machine won't be any stronger. If you're piloting one of these machines, you'd need to see where its feet were going, and you'd have to look ahead - both at once. So it's not going to be any faster. And any remote-controlled atomaton will have lag - slower reflexes, and hence not as deadly. What your solution is about is a smart missle. Fast, doesn't care about terrain, and packs a punch.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
What it will really need is an excellent API so that you can extend it. The last thing I want to do is invest $300,000 in a really state of the art exoskeleton just to have it become completely obsolete when XO-Skeleton 2005 comes out.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
wacking off with this thing?
Now people won't mistake him for being a superhero with that tacky nick of his.
It looks like ARPA has given up working on innovative things such as the Internet. It's probably time they had a break and start inventing toys for big boys like the Pentagon! Hmmm...maybe they'll also start inventing those plastic toy soldiers to recon work in future too.
One has to wonder whether will end up with giant mecha one day. Hopefully someone from Slashdot might build that giant penguin mecha from those Penguin Computing banners, so we can all pay a nice visit to someone at Redmond = ).
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
- In Homer's Illiad, Achilles could be considered to have personal armor, except his heel
... - Heinlein's Starship Troopers
- H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, where the Martians could be considered to be wearing some kind of suit.
- Asimov's Foundation, with his reference to personal force fields.
- Marvel's Iron Man?
- Macross
- Mobile Suit Gundam
Hey, maybe I'm stretching it, but surely somewhere there's a first?Wow!! Does this sound anything like a certain book I know written by Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers). Actually though, it sounds like a very cool think they're doing if it all works out. Who wouldn't want to be able to lift cars one-handed, leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc. :)
Perception is reality
An operator inside of an exoskeleton has several advantages that your typical remote-control model lacks.
First is more control and depth of input. A person inside of one these would have depth perception, periphrial vision, and (assuming the machine's not too loud) audio. Also, being inside allows for more control over how the input is managed (eye movements, etc.)
Second, a human being, as an operator, will be able to handel an exoskeleton far more intuitivly than a remote-virtual body. This will result in far less training than would otherwise be needed. We all know how to work a body.
Third, you gotta admit, it's pretty damn cool. It feeds out monkey-egos to personally be able to pick up the car/steel beam/whatever. You just can't get that kind of rush via remote...
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
The problem with a virtual body is that it will never replace the capabilities of an infantry soldier. Throughout history man has tried to win wars from a distance with artillery, bombers, tanks, and cruise missiles. The problem is that to win a war, killing people and blowing up equipment from a distance is not enough. You have to send in the infantry to finish up at the end. Look at Kosovo for example. Yes, our bombing campaign brought them to the peace tables, but now that there is peace in the area American soldiers are inside Kosovo keeping the peace. Without the presence of real live soldiers the war would break out again. And because most of the United States Army's missions are peacekeeping, soldiers are going to have to be onsite. Exoskeletons are just not gonna cut it in the middle of a peacekeeping operation when communication is needed. Another point to ponder: I think that exoskeletons will be used mainly to mount weapon systems that would be too heavy or bulky for a soldier to otherwise carry. And, because an infantry squad only has one heavy weapon member per squad, the saw gunner, every soldier will probably not have an exoskeleton except the one soldier with the heavy weapon platform.
We are homer of borg, you will be hmmm...donuts...
Fight Spammers!
Like with the bionic man, he jumps off of a 8 story building, his legs can take it, but half his spine would be crushed from the impact. Or he can lift 1000lbs, but his should would fall off.
You have to take into account the secondary effects of the forces on the body.
Fight Spammers!
I don't think you can get both speed/jumping and strength/payload capacity simultaneously.
or its at least a really tough design...
significant increase in strength and payload capabilities means that it has to be self supporting almost.
Having shock absorbtion, ability to turn hips and shoulders, and to just keep your balance in a bipedal system all get compromised.
you almost have to go with caterpilar chains for movement, and so you might as well make a mini tank. Since a mini tank can't go that many more places where a big tank can go, you might as well keep your big tank.
In a lightweight frame approach designed to stress balance for some minimal strength inprovement, anything that enhances your strength, is going to hurt your flexibility. In a quake type combat environment, you need to be able to turn quickly (hip and shoulder flexibility) and aim/fire.
They should be designing boots that make you faster, jump higher in one suit that helps combat situations where nimbleness is needed, and a different strength suit for the guys who have lug around the rocket launchers.
Hey, this isn't right. "Starship Troopers" wasn't just about the fancy weaponry -- they should first establish a proposal investigating the social effects of limiting the franchise to veterans, or lashing as a replacement for imprisonment for certain offences.
;-)
Seriously, though, it IS funny to see that every single thing in that list came from Starship Troopers, and I don't think any suit-based thing mentioned in Starship Troopers was excluded. I really have to suspect that the whole idea for this particular suggestion originated from one person reading Starship Troopers for the first time.
COOL.
-Billy
Um... Of course, I wonder what this will do to our warfare? It could make it worse... Or better. I'll have to ponder that. Of course, it wouldn't affect guerrila warfare.
--
No, this isn't another GPL zealot screaming "Open-Source Everything!", I've actually got an interesting idea. Why not try an open source style community development project for something like this? I mean, how many hardware hackers here could figure out the electronics needed for this thing? How many programmers here could write the OS and a component style architecture to run it? How many engineers here could come up with efficient actuator designs or durable frames? If a system like this were developed and the military passed it over, then participants could count it as a hell of a learning experience. If the military actually accepted the design and paid out the US$50mil, then the funds could simply be divvied up among the various contributors or even donated to pre-agreed upon charities.
I don't have time to manage a project like this myself, but I would definitely contribute to such a project if somebody were willing to put it together (I've got a complete body cooling/heating system that I designed for a friend who races stock cars. It runs 6 hours on 4 D cell batteries and can maintain a skin temperature of 45F to 80F in a -20F to 130F environment).
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3123/hawkingexo.html
One of my professors is working on these projects right now and has been for awhile. The US military has had stuff in the past, just not what you may consider "exoskeleton." They loosely considered Rocketpacks and things like in Alien(s? when Ripley put on the big loader robot suit thing and kicked the mother's ass) as exoskeletons.
He is working on the propulsion parts right now. One of the problems they have with "skins" that make you stronger is that they can crush you. That would suck.
The leaping great heights is done using jet/rocket devices. As for the power problem, I think rotational inertia storage a la Rolex's Oyster Perpetual motion stuff would help if you have the suit "turned off." That could charge the batteries during unpowered walking or during rocket assisted leaping.
I am going to talk with him about working on these projects and maybe submitting a proposal myself.
IANAL, but I play one on
can you here it, its just very faint.
its the sound of thousands of anime fans quietly chuckling with joy.
The most useful idea in this direction to date was from Kraft Telerobotics, which once built a backhoe with force-feedback controls. You put your hand in the gripper and made digging motions, with the backhoe following along. The force feedback was good; they claimed the operator could dig around a pipe by feel. Great for muddy trenches. Didn't sell; Kraft was geared to selling to researchers, not building contractors.
So it ought to be possible. Useful? I doubt it. Too many actuators and joints for a fieldable machine.
..is to build a big robot exoskeleton you can use to crush your enemies... Now this is news for nerds!!
But seriously, robots like this have been science fiction for decades, it's interesting to see respectable institutions taking this seriously. I imagine successful implementation of this technology would again change the face of warfare. With anti-aircraft missles easily mountable on each soilder, perhaps air power will not always be king?
Something to think about... This could be the biggest paradigm shift until they discover a good repulsorlift and make hovertanks.
--
Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics?
Exoskeleton means something hard (skeleton) outside with softbody inside - which means, for every exo to work, a human must be inside operate it.
If the purpose of the exo is to do heavy-lifting and/or other tough/dangerous stuffs, putting a human inside still mean if accident happens, someone will get hurt, or may even die.
My own proposal -
Why not make a remote-virtual body instead?
Instead of putting a LIFE human being at the place of work, why not use the virtual reality technology into work, and operate the exo-droid virtually - via remote control.
That way, the exo-droid can do all types of things, including stepping on landmines, without having the operator risking injuries.
What do you think?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The whole exoskeleton population has a nervous twitch at the turn of each century or on a leap year
Cult of the Dead Cow develop a tool exploiting vulnerabilities in the exoskeleton security, forcing it to perform Monty Python Silly Walks and the Can-Can every Tuesday at 3pm.
The 'Eiffel 65 effect' - the suit locks up solid and the whole world turns blue
Each service pack applied to the suit alters its behaviour subtly. This damages user confidence and they require counselling
Shock troopers from the DoJ keep attacking you with chain-saws, to remove functionality which they feel shouldn't have really been bundled into the suit in the first place
Personally - I'll stick to waring the hides of dead animals - much safer and warmer.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.