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First Military Exoskeleton Reaches Prototype
JonathanGCohen writes "The U.S. Military has created the first ever prototype for an exoskeleton to be worn by soldiers capable of making its 100 pound weight and a 70 pound supply package feel like five pounds." From the article: "Bleex 1 consists of a pair of hydraulically powered leg braces, more than 40 electronic sensors, a control computer, and an internal-combustion engine providing power from an attached backpack. The plastic and carbon-fiber braces are affixed rigidly to the soldier through a customized pair of standard Army boots, with more compliant and giving connections at the chest and waist. These looser connections prevent blisters and abrasions."
Which would you rather do: Carry 70 pounds throughout your journey, or carry 5 pounds for the first 15 minutes and then well over a hundred for the rest?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I suspect the biggest obstacle to comfortably using exoskeletons is responsiveness. If you want to move your hand, you just think about it and it takes a few milliseconds to move. With an exoskeleton, you have to hit the sensors (perhaps past their critical point), and the hydraulics/whatever has to kick in and move it. How long does that take?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
It would really suck to be wearing one of these things when an EMP bomb goes off over the battlefield. I'm sure 170 pounds is not going to feel like 5 pounds after the electronics shuts down.
This is far cry from something useful. Soldiers do a lot more than walking. What about running, diving, low crawling to some cover, then firing from a crouched postion?
you can throw a match into and nothing will happen since it's flash point is extremely high
When will people learn the difference between it's and its?
This exoskeleton sucks for defending and going after people in cities, close alleys.
It would be good if they figured out how to enclose a soldier in plated armor strong enough to withstand a IED (although that maight be a lot of armor).
The main benefits of that would be that even though you are slow you can take a punishment and still be able to get into alleys, buildings, and other places a M1Abrahms can't get into.
Then again... It would be more logical to send in a remote controlled robot with a machine gun on it.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Many of you are asking questions of "how will it perform in combat, can operators crouch/dive/roll/prepare a five course dinner/shoot/etc, and what happens when it runs out of gas?"
This is why we have the prototype stage when we build something.
When Goddard launched his first rockets, people didn't say "Yeah, but how're you going to get to the moon on that?"
You build, find the shortcomings of your design, improve, and test again.
The suit probably doesn't have any practical application now, but future versions in five - ten years might allow military mechanics to fix heavy vehicles quickly, and in 20 - 50 years, our soldiers might be able to carry better body armor into combat with less restrictions than the current body armor (which is heavy in its own right).
I like the idea that our soldiers who are being shot at will eventually be able to move faster, shoot more effectively, wear more protection, and be better equiped than their enemies.
Surely as a member of the military you will do whatever you're bloody well told to do; isn't that the whole point?
no taxation without representation!
Your comment is very interesting and I'll have to go look for that book. However, I'd just like to point out that your question is not about the future, it is now.
Cruise missles, ICBMs and even just vastly superior artillery and aircraft make the "causing of pain to [other men] with no risk to [themselves]" a reality now.
Cruise missles were launched on Bagdad from ships in the Red Sea. That ship was not in any danger from the people it attacked. Even the stealth bombers that participated in the first attacks on Bagdad were not in any credible danger from Iraqi forces.
What is my point? Well, I'm not sure, execpt to point out that your question is immediate and requires thought now. We don't need to wait for robots to need the discussion.
An internal combustion engine? One thousand PSI of hot hydraulic fluid coursing through steel veins running throughout my lower torso and legs? And gasoline? On my back? While I'm being shot at? I'm game!
Only a psyhco would put a nuclear powerplant in one of these. As it is the enemies duty to destroy these (things are just going to be blowing up all over the place in a battle) you put your own soldiers at extreme risk, not to mention the long term danger to the environment and civilians. Your own troops are not going to want be near them! Or did you mean cold fusion?
I'm not convinced that an exoskeleton will enable a footsoldier to take on a tank of the same tech level.
A foot soldier can already take on a tank. http://www.defense-update.com/products/r/rpg.htm
Imagine a soldier carrying a ton of armour, yet able to move almost as quickly as a man, yet impervious to most weapons...
Well, based on other posts, it looks like armor ain't what it used to be. But imagine a soldier carrying a hornet's nest of anime-style swarming missiles. He'd be a like a mobile squad-level point defense station.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Forget the anti-armor missiles, a good hit in the upper portion of the thing would probably be enough to knock it down even if the round doesn't penetrate the armor. Once it's down, you could probably pick it apart pretty easily.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
So what, its got a pull-start? What about stealth? Terrorist 1: You hear something? Terrorist 2: Sounds like one hundred people mowing their lawns, nothing to worry about. TFA /.'ed, so if it meant some kind of fuel-cell business then whatever. The important thing is that I amuse myself.
Indeed, that's an excellent reason why armored vehicles (like tanks) are no longer used in modern armies: a single hit into a vulnerable part can disable them. You don't use anything that is not completely, 100% perfect. Never mind that a single land-bound tank, while it lasts, can break through defenses that otherwise would be impenetrable. There simply would be no military value in a tank that can run, climb, jump - even if it has some limited flight capability. Just think of it, what if it gets destroyed while doing its job?
I wonder if these babies will be stocked-up with napalm, white phospherous, agent orange, 'depleted' uranium and other WOMD.
... not to mention helping out the victims of Katrina, or even just boosting public spending. When was the last time spending increased on social services over there? Or do people get locked up for asking that question these days?
Gotta love those peace-keeping missions. Keep up the good work, USA. At this rate, the world WILL be full of people wishing you blown to high heavens. Surely US taxpayers' money would be better spent making ammends with the victims of the invasion of Iraq & Afghanistan, and other countries ravaged by US foreign policy
I was watching a documentary on the race to build the next generation fighter jet, and time and time again, the main argument in favor of the X22 was that the other design looked weird.
Yeah, plan your multi-billion dollar expenses on the sexiness of the machine boys, not on the functionality. I too get "the willies" thinking that people this infantile are sitting with their finger on the metaphorical nuclear button.
You don't suppose that rather than try to dig up classified information, or try to determine the objective criteria used in the decision(things like unrefueled range, weapons load, maintainability, cost, situation awareness aids, etc. ) that the producers took an easy out and said it won because, " Oooooh, its pretty and fast!" I find that notion easier to believe than the assertion that a major defense program providing the primary air superiority fighter for the Air Force, the F-22 would be decided primarily on aesthetics and that said selection would survive scrutiney by the Department of the Air Force, DOD, Congress, and the President. There are many philosophical positions that can impact programs like this, (purpose built vs general purpose, heavy vs light) but ugly vs pretty isn't really one of them. If it were, two of the most effective aircraft the US has built would never have seen the light of day: the F-117 Nighthawk stealth figher, and the A-10 Thunderbold II, AKA Warthog.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell