Slashdot Mirror
US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms
PenguinRadio writes "This is being reported in a few places, most notably USA Today which has an article about the US Army teaming up with MIT to develop a new nanotechnology-based outfit for our soldiers that can detect bio hazards, injury, and other funky things. The 5 year, $50 million grant also wants to look at bending light around the uniform to create some sort of invisibility." CNET has another story. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies has its own web page, of course.
Hmm.. What does Anime have to do with any of this? Are Slashdot editors hoping that female soldiers will be outfitted with scantily-clad, breast-hugging Anime style getups?
How do they plan to power these things???
;-)
Army trained hamster powered generators carried in backpacks perhaps?
Hate to say it, but most new technologies don't seem to get very far until the pentagon decides they're useful. Hopefully this will prime the pump of a nanotech industrial revolution.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Put me down for $100 on MIT for the 2007 NCAA torney.
-- Nobody should take away Microsoft's freedom to innovate, particularly since they haven't used it yet
...Besides, if they were really ANIME-based, these suits would be easily pilotable by 13 year-olds.
In fact, they'd probably be pilotable ONLY by 13-year olds, as the result of some plot twist!
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It's anime-like because, in combat, the two sides will simply hang back and stare at each other for a while. Then both will fire off everything they have with explosive fury. When the dust settles... both sides will still be standing, but the collateral damage to the area will be _huge_ and there will be massive civilian casualties.
Oh, wait, that's how modern military actions are now. Alas.
A.
Supercharged shoes could release energy when soldiers jump, propelling them over a 20-foot wall.
-What happens after the wall, is there also a parachute, or are you just supposed to land after your 20 foot fall.
Micoreactors could detect bleeding and apply pressure.
-So that the enemies crackers can cut off circulation in battle to help their side
Light-deflecting material could make the suit blend in with surroundings.
-So that the number of soilders hurt or killed by friendly fire increases.
MIT's research centers had been working on nanotechnology ideas long before getting involved with the Army, but not with military applications in mind.
-Isn't that how it always happens, soon the MIT reasercher will make a peace time achievment award.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
In fact, they'd probably be pilotable ONLY by 13-year olds, as the result of some plot twist!
But only if the suit turns out to be your enemy.
Actually the light bending will be incorporated into the very skin of the soldiers, with a light mask to cover the eyes. They will have to fight naked of course, but this is causing the Joint Chiefs to rethink allowing women on the battlefield.
Of course, if the light gets bent around the soldier, how will any hit their eyes so they can see?
Bend light? The best we've been able to accomplish around the lab is break wind.
The GOOD news is, every female soldier will now be a 38 DDD.
The bad news is, these suits are NOT proof against suddenly-appearing, demonic phallic tentacles.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Well, since most of the folks on here apparently only know Starship Troopers from the suckass movie - where they not only aren't in armor, they don't even have long sleeved shirts - I'm glad at least someone made the connection. Robert Heinlein *invented* the idea of powered armor in that book. Anime may have borrowed it, but it was RAH who started it all.
Though the artist rendering does demonstrate what sorts of comic books that guy reads. At least he didn't do the female version, with breasts each bigger than the helmet. Too bad the artist missed the important point that with nano-scale materials, the suit could funtion while still being flexible enough that you wouldn't need those multi-part joints, which are only needed in bulky or rigid materials. But it looked cool.
-reemul
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The original poster was seriously confused. Don't people pay attention in physics classes anymore?
Simple considerations tell us that geometrical optics is an excellent approximation for any large object. The size of the object is much, much greater than a wavelength of light, so optics reduces to tracing rays from your eyeball to the source, and thence reflected or absorbed as the case may be. There is no such thing as "bending" visible light around a macroscopic object. You can make a suit which is nearly fully reflective (not a good stealth tactic -- you would appear like a nice shiny mirror), or nearly absorptive (in which case you would appear black), but there are plenty of ordinary materials that already work quite well for either purpose.
Since I presume that the nanotech folks at MIT are well aware of this fact, I doubt they proposed to "bend light" in their suits. Rather, they are probably going to implement something which Nature has long realized in chameleons and various other creatures : "invisibility" through blending in. Various miniaturized digital cameras could sense the background that a suit was in, and change the colorations on the suit (perhaps using a variation on the "digital ink" concept) accordingly. Hence, a suit could appear sandy-yellow when in the desert, white when in the desert, and camoflouge when in the jungle.
Since we all already doing essentially that when outfitting soldiers (no one wears the bright red of old British regulars anymore), it is unclear whether there is any real advantage to this concept, especially given the cost. Particularly since, to anyone equipped with infrared night vision goggles, every body temperature objects glow like a beacon.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
We're gonna make soldiers so incredibly expensive that we can't afford very many.
Then we'll send them into battle, whereupon they'll be vastly outnumbered by hoards of people carrying rocks.
Last words? "Ah... now here's a problem we didn't consider..."
As I said when I submitted this 5 hours ago(no I'm not bitter:-) ), is that this technology has potential for very good non-military uses. The enchancing of strength could help people with Muscular Schirrosis move around more freely, or help people who've had a leg smashed by a car or something walk again. Lots of fuzzy warm stuff could result from the development project that can benefit humanity(as well as letting otakus live out anime dreams of a exosuit).
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
What's the difference between an MIT mechanical engineer and and MIT civil engineer?
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, and civil engineers build targets.
Ha!
The military is going to hire Cobra Commander!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased