Japan Displays Prototype Robot Suit

anaesthetica writes "A project at Tsukuba University has produced a battery-powered robot suit designed to aid the wearer in strength-related tasks, like lifting heavy objects. The suit also has the capability of propelling itself, which is potentially useful for helping the handicapped or elderly walk. The optimistic professor who lead the project stated, 'Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future.'"

Comments

good way to lose a hand...

[saleenS281]

I see that there are no gloves for this suit. So... in theory, you have arms that can lift 800lbs, with hands and fingers that will tear off your body at ~500lbs (assuming it's fragile little thing like that guy).

Remind me again why you would want to be able to have superhuman strength when all it's going to do is cause you to smash a body part if not amputate yourself by accident.

Well, that's the WHOLE point

[Moraelin]

"How? The only things I can think of that help against such guerilla tactics are good armor and staying alert. Anyhow, who needs super strength when you have good ol' firepower?"

Which is exactly why and what for: to enable soldiers to carry more armour and dish out more firepower.

Don't think for a moment that military applications of super-strength will mean Superman-style punching villains in the face. It won't. Ever.

However a major topic throughough the last century has been the weight of ammo and equipment a soldier has to carry. It's a real issue. That's one of the reasons (among other factors) why we've moved to smaller calibres.

Put some powered armour on those soldiers and suddenly they can carry a lot more heavy weaponry and ammo.

Individual armour has also been discarded precisely because of weight considerations: you _could_ make a breastplate that could stop a rifle round, but it was impractically heavy.

Now think the other way around: if you have an armoured exo-skeleton, you can carry enough armour at least over the vital organs to stop even a 7.62mm round or shrapnel from hand grenades and pipe bombs. _And_ this time it's without a mobility penalty.

You've just made life harder for the enemy soldiers, because now they need to lug around bigger weaponry to take you out, which limits _their_ mobility.

But perhaps more importantly, and this is really what makes it a wet dream for the military is: enabling soldiers to carry more electronics and a sattellite connection. Giving at least one soldier per squad enough electronics to know exactly where the enemy is, what's happening, where is the squad needed, what should they avoid, etc, is something that can give a _huge_ advantage.

Nations have been defeated before because basically their chain of command didn't react fast enough. E.g., that's why large armies like those of France or Poland crumbled in the face of Blitzkrieg in WW2. They just weren't prepared to react at that speed.

Or the USSR in WW2 was massively handicapped by their lack of radios on their tanks.

Now picture giving each squad a direct link to their officers _all_ the time. Bidirectional. You can know _exactly_ what's happening at each point, in real time, and the soldiers can know exactly what's expected of them. You can instantly see when your troops are being pinned and flanked, and how, and you can tell them exactly how to counter it. Better yet they too can see a bigger picture and react in a more intelligent manner.

It's something that can really make or break a battle.