Power Suit Promises Super-Human Strength

anthemaniac writes "LiveScience is reporting out of NextFest on a Japanese-built power suit that amplifies the strength of its wearer. The onboard computer is hooked up to sensors that monitor natural movements, then it inflates cuffs to boost lifting power. The Power Assist Suit could be used by hospital workers to move heavy patients, the researchers say."

Comments

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the Mech Wars BEGIN!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Brickwall]

You have it wrong.

Iron Man lives!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Epistax]

No no. This is just why you never make a character with more than 4 strength; it's just a waste. The suit gives you plenty to hold the largest weapons with no penalties and lets you put points into the far more valuable int and agi.

Starship Troopers anyone?

[Scooter's_dad]

Now all we need are little jet packs on the ankles.

Re:Starship Troopers anyone?

[idonthack]

Combine this with the recently renewed efforts by the marines to develop a system to deploy soldiers from space, and we're pretty much there.

Knock knock. Who's there? U.S. Military

[BadAnalogyGuy]

While the application of strengh-enhancing "suits" to care centers like hospitals and nursing homes may be unique, the idea has been around forever in both Sci-fi and military research programs. Battery life is the main issue for real suits, and this one with 30 minutes of power is no different. Unlike military applications, though, 30 minutes ought to be plenty to assist in the movement of heavier patients or simply augmenting the strength of waif-like Japanese nurses. In the battle theater, though, 30 minutes is woefully short.

Other possible applications is in the rescue operations in the aftermath of a large earthquake or hurricane. We use tools to augment our strength all the time, from the fork to the forklift, we use these tools to do things that we just can't do ourselves.

I welcome our new Japanese mecha suit nurse overlords.

Re:Knock knock. Who's there? U.S. Military

[NinjaFarmer]

Actually 30 minutes for a supported combat air drop could be pretty useful. 30 minutes of human mobility tank could be used to sieze a drop zone or helecoptor landing site. After that you lose the strength and mobility on the suit, but you still have the heavy weapons and special forces soldiers in those suites on site. Getting the suites OUT may be a problem, and the entrance is anything but subtle, but if you are going for real "shock-and-awe" type of assault a powered suit like that would be pretty good.

Re:Knock knock. Who's there? U.S. Military

[AmberBlackCat]

I'm imagining a nerd putting on one of these suits and approaching the bully who's been taking his lunch money. After 29 minutes of playing with his new super strength, he finally taps the bully on the shoulder. It's about this time that his battery dies. The camera pans to the side so we can only hear the gory details: wham, wham, wham! Shoop. Then the camera pans back to show our hero sitting in a trash dumpster, checking his battery. Supervolt. Nooooooo! Tune in for part two when our hero is sure he'll get even with the bully once and for all, now that his Supervolt battery has been replaced with a Sony one. Go get him, tiger.

Dull

[cowscows]

Moving heavy patients? Was someone having a contest to see who could come up with the most boring use of super-human strength?

Re:Dull

[Mr. Slippery]

Moving heavy patients? Was someone having a contest to see who could come up with the most boring use of super-human strength?

It may sound boring to you. Sounds like a really good idea to me...my mother, formerly a nurse, suffered a career-ending neck injury when she had to move a patient by herself in an understaffed nursing home. (The patient suffered from senile dementia, became combative, and she fell with the patient on top.)

After fifteen years, two surgeries, and various physical therapies, she still has significant pain and disability.

Sure, I want to trade in my Subaru for a mecha as much as any geek. But anything that prevents other nurses - the people who have the most impact on keeping you alive when you're hospitalized - from suffering a similar fate, sounds like a damn good idea to me.

Re:Dull

[slack-fu]

You forgot to start that reply with... "You insensitive clod!"

Let's get them all out of the way

[Nova Express]

1. What could possibly go wrong?
2. I for one welcome our new power-suited overlords!
3. Does it transform into a semitruck?
4. Put Rico's Roughnecks on standbye.
5. Now we need to find a whining Japanese teenage boy who will be required to share living quarters with lots of hot girl and who be the only one who can pilot the mech to save the world.
6. All hail our giant cyborg President! May death come quickly to his enemies!

OK, we now return you to your regular Slashdotting.

Re:Let's get them all out of the way

[triffid_98]

Gekigangar Punch?

Yeah yeah, patients etc.

[Colin Smith]

My question is where are the dual minigun mounts?

Oh my god

[CaffeineAddict2001]

If this suit gets a short while somebody is in mid-lift I hope it makes it on YouTube.

In other words

[Hao Wu]

The Power Assist Suit could be used by hospital workers to move heavy patients, the researchers say.

Or even fat people, possibly....

'Elbow cuffs'

[caitsith01]

If this thing works buy supplying extra force at the joints, as it appears, then doesn't it carry a serious risk of injuring the extremities? For example, the suit might give you enough power via your elbows to lift something very heavy, but all that power is also being transferred through your wrists and fingers, which as far as I can see are unsupported and unaugmented. The amount of stress it could potentially put on those joints is a little worrying.

I would think a system that covers the entire limb in questions would be far safer...

Re:'Elbow cuffs'

[asuffield]

This exact point was raised by Masamune Shirow, many years ago (in Ghost in the Shell, I believe). A fully cyborg arm, attached to a test stand, could easily lift a one ton weight - but attached to a human body, attempting to do the same would simply rip the arm out of its shoulder socket. The point was that only total-conversion cyborgs, or near-total-conversion, would gain any significant boosts in ability to beyond the level that could be accomplished by a normal human - limb replacement is good enough in the case of injury, but wouldn't let you do very much that you weren't already able to do.

Presumably a full-coverage powered suit would have a similar effect, compared to limited augmentation of a few joints or limbs. Of course, there is the additional problem that human joints aren't designed to move very fast for a sustained period of time, and driving them at high speed with external actuators may cause injury.

Re:Power suit

[Mr. Slippery]

Read Starship Troopers and ask which version the guys at DARPA will fund.

This is from Japan. Their militaristic ambitions are still low (though perhaps on the rebound), while they have an aging popultion.

The real question is...

[magicnico]

What OS is on the onboard computer ?

Re:SNL

[PDXNerd]

Or at least pick you up - here are some better pics and a whole slew of great information from the horses mouth. http://www.we.kanagawa-it.ac.jp/~yamamoto_lab/pas/ index.htm

Sounds like the birth of a fetish...

[AmazingRuss]

Japanese + nurses + mechasuit

Re:Sounds like the birth of a fetish...

[BiggerIsBetter]

Japanese + nurses + mechasuit

Maybe they can use them to fight off the tentacles?

Once this is in use...

[John Guilt]

...will there be a grandfather clause allowing me to keep voting?

(What if the younger, semi-socialist R.A.H. had written "Starship Troopers"? He was still had that hazed-in loyalty to the military....)

Rifleman's Creed v1.1

[__aawdrj2992]

This is my powered armor suit. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My suit is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My suit, without me, is useless. Without my suit, I am useless. I must fire my tatical nuclear ordinance true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me.
I must vaporize him before he shoots me. I will...
My suit and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My armor suit is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its negative force feedback. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my powered armor suit clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God, I swear this creed. My suit and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life...
So be it, until victory is Terra's and there is no enemy, but peace!

Voice Activated

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Of course, coming from Japan, the super-powers of this suit will be voice-activated. And not just regular-voice, or sotto voce, the wearer will be required to shout-out the desired function as it is being used.

Fat-Person-Lifting Super-Strength!!!!
New-Bride-Over-Threshold Ultimate-Lift!!
Giant-Cherry-Blossom Power-Tree-Shaker!!!

What's the price tag?

[TheLink]

If it's really expensive and stays expensive, it may be cheaper to hire someone strong enough to do the job. In lots of places the cost of labour is lower than in Japan.

Re:What's the price tag?

[rabiddeity]

Problem is, Japanese society is highly xenophobic. I'm burning karma here, but this is from someone who has lived here for several years. They wouldn't let foreign workers into the country to do simple labor, for fear that they'd overstay their visas and cause crime and not learn to speak Japanese. Say what you will, but a racially/socially/economically homogeneous population has done loads to keep Japan's crime rates comfortably low, and they like it that way.

So from that perspective, robotic assists seem like the way to go. Sick, but true.

Does it come in...

[sam991]

Orange? Or Green?

Re:The difference between Japan and the US

[arthurh3535]

Gee, stereotype much?

While the US has/have been working on exo-frame type technology for military purposes, it is not a purely "American" concept. USA and Japan have both had fictional characters based on "power armor" and such. Iron Man, Knight Sabers, Starship Troopers.

Though isn't it interesting that the mundane or boring use is the first wide-spread use is going to be a pragmatic use?

Innovation comes to where it is needed first, not where we necessarily want it to go.