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Inventor Slims Down Exoskeletal Body Armor
The Hamilton Spectator is reporting that inventor Troy Hurtubise, creator of the "bear-protection suit" made famous by taking a hit from a moving vehicle, has slimmed down his design in hopes of landing a lucrative government contract. From the article: "He has spent two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the 'first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour.'"
Let the comments about how it looks just like an avatar from Quake/UT/Halo/etc begin.
WOW - if it pans out, this device is amazing. It only weighs 40lbs, and can withstand the impact from a car or elephant gun? If he can really mass produce it for $2,000 a piece, I would think the government would buy thousands (especially considering decent upper body armor can cost the same amount, and provides limited protection in comparison).
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This thing would probably easily deflect flying chairs...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
- Beaten with baseball bats
- Slammed by a large log
- Pushed off a cliff
- Hit by a truck
- Beaten by a gang
Google Video has a different videoTHe most trusted name in protection... *ducks*
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Honestly if I wanted to place a clock in an efficient location "dangling between the legs" isn't one of the first places I would think.
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"Crunchy on the outside gooey on the inside......."
Wow did I get this line from the article wrong
"Dangling between the legs, that would be a clock."
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The inventor wore it (including helmet) in a four hour drive - and police officer stopped him and let him go after convincing himself that the inventor could see just fine with the helmet on.
This would be great for soldiers - if able to withstand assault rifle bullets, its weight (18kg) is pretty low for full body armor.
What makes me curious is this:
"In the helmet, there's a solar-powered fresh-air system"
How much fresh air could a solar powered air system produce?
Just as a start, here's his Wikipedia entry.
So until his claims are proven, he's in the group of people whose claims should all be taken with a grain of salt.
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Wouldn't want to be wearing one in the desert (jungle, etc), probably a reason why there is limited government interest. Unless this things has some sort of personal AC unit... but that would probably require portable energy beyound military logistical capabilies.
This isn't a matter of discomfort; dehydration and heat exhaustion would probably make this thing useless for large scale deployment. Maybe good for police forces, or soldiers operating in very hostile condtions, but probably too expensive and immature for mainstream deployment.
* $1000 - $2000 each to your normal market.
* $100,000 - $250,000 each to the government for the same outfit as above.
That sounds about right....
Here are some more pictures:
One
Two
Three
A picture can be found here of this revolutionary new technology.
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So, it goes over your body and protects you from harmful things but "Trojan?" Was the name "Ultimate Mega Body Condom" already taken?
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For extended deployment, yeah, this would be a bear. But I would think for SWAT-style military deployments into occupied buildings, this would be brilliant. Send four "hardened" troops in ahead of the "soft" troops to clear the building, then let them return to base to cool off.
I would think it would also be handy for the guy who draws the short straw to man the Humvee turret -- in which case AC lines could easily be run up through his feet.
Think about it; our military has spent disgusting amounts of our tax money on a similar project that is now in serious trouble and a source of much scandal. Meanwhile, a private citizen of a neighboring country, with an out-of-pocket budget, succeeds (i'm mildly skeptical, but still, it looks good) at making something that would be a very good start towards our own projects. I want my tax-money back!
For those not in the know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise
He's got his own documentary (via the National Film Board) and he won an ignoble prize...
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It would also be interesting if one guy with a few thousand dollars could develop better balistic defence in his back yard than the entire US military machine (or indeed anyone else's military machine) has achieved ever. I'm guessing that if anyone takes him up on his challenge, and fires a sniper rifle at him of the kind being used in say Iraq, he's going to win a Darwin award. :-(
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Nah, bank robbers would love to have these. Run into a bank, take a few shots from the security guard before disarming him. You are "disguised" and if the police pull up, you have a good chance of again taking them out before they get you. A suit like this is a criminal's wet dream (if it works).
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I want to say that the rifle (an elephant gun or not) was fired straight into the chest plate. The joints might not be so well armored (and in the 40 pounds version, they are not even be protected).
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Or, more reasonably for the "prison take-down" teams they use to subdue unruly prisoners.
The first two guys are in these as they get a bit better use of limbs than holding the standard assault shield.
Then, the weight of them is a bonus because it'll help them pin the prisoner down.
Thing is, crackpots can still make brilliant discoveries. Newton was an alchemist; Tesla made all sorts of bizarre claims about death rays, "thought photography", and the like.
Hurtubise's bear suit work seems legitimate, so to the extent that the "Trojan" is an extension of that, extreme skepticism doesn't seem called for. OTOH, the "God Light"...well, maybe dude got hit in the head too many times while testing his bear suit or something.
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Yea, my point didn't come across that clearly. This is an ideal piece of armor for very specialized applications. Don't know what direction the military is moving with mounted armaments, I'd think in the future we'll see joy-stick controlled metal-storm/.50 cals where the gunner is inside a vehicle with software aided remote targeting. Best defense is a good offense you know (especially with RPGs and IEDs).
SWAT-style applications are a good potential use. Especially for urban police forces. I am skeptical of how much military use this thing would see.
As someone with personal experience in the area of gov't contracts, there is no way on dog's green earth this guy is going to get anything but a "don't call us we'll call you" from the Fed's.
What most citizens fail to comprehend is the contracts for things already supplied in very large quantities to the Fed's don't change. They don't until enough moral/political outrage is generated from a given situation that "something must be done!" In the meantime, you get no straight answers from anyone anywhere on the Fed's side.
He may have a great product, but this is where business acumen is important. The guy has two practical options from a business perspective:
1. License the technology for pennies on the dollar to the guys already supplying armor to the DOD and then get screwed by them because they know they didn't pay the guy enough to lawyer-up for the battle to establish the obvious years later. This is a classic move in big-business. Buy innovaters then put their innovations on the shelf where they are "safe."
2. Find other markets. One I'm sure would have some interest is the stunts industry in the U.S. If I still rode mtn bikes, I'd look into this to protect my old bones on some of my favorite descents. (The ones that haven't been lawyered away that is) Meanwhile, find a federal contractor who is powerful enough to run at whoever is providing armor now. It'll take 10 years to get a single purchase order, but maybe by the time the guy's grandchildren are running the company they'll be protecting soldiers.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Tricky. Aramid polymers (such as Kevlar or Twaron) are a few times stronger per weight unit than steel. Thus a suit made of steel would be a few times heavier than its polymer counterpart. Thus I'd think there's little interest in such beasts.
One interesting snippet though is that bulletproof vests are not knife resistant and knife-resistant vests are not bulletproof. This has to do with the type of weave.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
This thing will go GREAT with my debilitating Batman complex! Now all I need is a fortune and an intense personal tragedy!
Unless I read the article wrong, the suit costs Troy about 2k to make. Mass production for the military would require several steps not counted such as sampling and testing to assure fitness for use. Some of this would be offset by efficiencies of scale but I suspect that the additional costs will be larger than any of the savings attained by moving to mass production.
Does it run Linux?
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From TFA:
Aren't the major joints kind of important? One baseball bat to the pelvis, and the bear-man would be pretty much fubared, no? Doesn't appear to be a real "invincible man" suit like this guy's other inventions.
Looks pimpy, though.
> I'd think in the future we'll see joy-stick controlled metal-storm/.50 cals
> where the gunner is inside a vehicle with software aided remote targeting
Actually, thats not the future, its been in use for a while.
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My supervisor at work used one of these when he was deployed and supposedly (I may not be remembering correctly, so assume any error is mine) it can put a grenade in a window at a 1000 yards.
I say we take off, nuke the suit from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
Wasn't this technology perfected ten years ago?
How hard is it to take off if you've got to drain the lizard?
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The whole suit comes in at 18 kilograms. It covers everything but the fingertips and the major joints, and could be mass-produced for about $2,000, Hurtubise says.
IIRC, aiming for the joints was a common tactic in days of yore, when knights wore similar protection systems..... once you have the guy crippled and on the floor, a stab to an artery in the groin area would see him off.
I thought some armour protected the joints too, so I suggest he look at 14th to 16th century solutions to a 21st century problem.
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These days, even the bears are packing.
In general, stuff in video games is designed to look cool, rather than to be functional. I mean, look at MechWarrior for example. Why would you ever make a combat robot that walks? All you have to do is destroy one of its legs, or, hell, trip it up with a cable. (Of course, there's solid precedent for this.) I'm not saying that this is impossible, but when people announce technologies like this to the media before they undergo substantial testing, it usually means that they need venture capital. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and let's not even go into the Angel Light and God Light (which can "make blind men see and lame men walk").
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Only problem is, they'd have to rob a bank to afford one.
Even then it would still work better than most stuff that humans ever used as body armour. If you look back into history, humans have been quite happy with a lot less before.
Humans settled for a chain byrnie (basically, inaccurately: t-shirt) for a long time, until basically everyone was already trained to slash at the legs. Then they basically just made it longer. When bodkin tips and primitive firearms made maille useless, people just came up with a thin plate armour, but even that wasn't as invulnerable as you'd think. Then eventually guns got more and more powerful and all the weight was concentrated in a super-thick breastplate and helmet... at the price of leaving the arms and legs completely unprotected again.
(As a side-note, that's one of the factors that confuses people about medieval armours. They see a late musket era breastplate that weighs a lot, and get ideas like, "man, the whole suit must have weighed 100 kilos." In fact, at that point the breastplate and the helmet were the whole suit.)
At no point was the armour supposed to make someone 100% invulnerable. Something like a lance during a cavalry charge was nigh impossible to reliably stop, because with an armoured man and a destrier horse behind it, that was a helluva lot of energy and momentum pushing that tip. So armour never really tried to be invulnerable to that. Estocs could do a pretty good job of penetrating a knight's armour, and so could warhammers (think a thin sharp spike perpendicular to the handle, much like a pickaxe, not the massive hammers portrayed in video games), and so could back-spikes on axes, spiked maces/morningstars and flails. Even if it didn't penetrate, a mace or flail hit could crush articulations.
And in the age of chain armour, it was even more funny. A good hard hit with a straight sword could easily crush tissue and break bones even if it didn't penetrate the mesh of iron loops. Padding helped a bit, but only so much.
Basically the purpose of armour in all ages wasn't to make you invulnerable, but to give you better odds. If on the average you could hope for 1-2 disabling blows deflected by armour before one finally got you, that was advantage enough. Anything more than that that would have been impractically heavy and ultra-expensive. The weight was especially a factor, as they actually had to be able to fight in those suits.
So basically what I'm saying is that if this suit's only vulnerability are the joints, well, then that's already head and shoulders over what has been considered good armour before.
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I have looked at all of the different news sites and they all have the same picture. I know that it is common for a single set of pictures to be released to the press so the fact that all the sites have a picture doesn't concern me, rather it's that the picture is so low quality.
Today a consumer can easily buy a 8 MP camera so there is no reason that this picture shouldn't be much better quality, also the pixelation, to me at least, screams photoshop.
After reading about all the crack pot ideas this guy has come up with in the past ("God Light", "Angel Light", "1313 paste") why does everybody immediately believe this guy is telling the truth? I personally don't. First the suit looks TOO much like Halo, second whats up with that huge clock or cock?, third whats up with all the different contours on the suit (if this thing was really body armor would it need to be contoured like it had a million gadget built into it, which according to the article it doesn't?).
So I personally think this whole thing is a fake (much to my chagrin). I would love to hear why you think different.
Ok, he's videotaped himself, IN THE SUIT, being hit by a truck, wailed on by baseball bats, etc. And you're arguing that the suit must not exist because he also believes in some other nutcase idea?
Look, the suit exists. There's documentary evidence. (Literally; a documentary was made about his efforts to use the suit to observe hibernating bears, which is what it was originally designed for.) Regardless of what else he believes, this is definitely a product that can be useful to the military.
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The article mentions "high powered weapons", such as an elephant gun. Only problem is- an elephant gun isn't "high powered" in military terms. It's a damn big bullet, but big bullets have low velocities and are horrible at piercing armor because they spread their impact energy across a wide area.
An AK47 is a very high powered assault rifle (well over 2,000fps) and the favorite weapon of Iraqi guerrillas. Standard 7.62mm bullets (no idea if that's what the guerrillas are using) reportedly goes through more than a quarter inch of steel at close range. The armor piercing rounds will slice through a titanium+kevlar jacket like butter; it's doubtful this guy's suit could fare any better. I'm guessing Iraqi guerrillas don't have many AP bullets, but I bet they could find some if they needed to.
How about a 30-06? Small round, and extremely high velocity (over 2,500 fps.) AP rounds were used in WW2 against "lightly armored" targets (jeeps and such.)
BMG .50 cal? Aka the gun that marines use to punch holes in just about everything short of armored personnel carriers. And yes, there are a number of non-US rifles similar in purpose to the .50 BMG that Iraqi guerrillas could get their hands on. Getting hit by a .50 BMG in the head would probably give you a severe concussion or kill you just from the physical energy of the round alone. To stop said bullet, your helmet would probably have to weigh more than the entire suit...
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I'm not making a comment on this guy's stuff one way or the other, but having seen first hand exactly how government contractors/projects work, I'd say it's entirely possible and even probable that a private group or individual could beat them on specific types of projects.
Unless you've seen it, you wouldn't believe the level of miscommunication, ineptitude, petty politics, and flat out greed that can get in the way of actually getting a real product developed with the government.
Is this supposed to be exciting? I've had my endoskeleton since birth. Bah!
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Right, but if someone gets trampled or hit with something heavy while NOT in this suit, their weight is going to be the least of their concerns.
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Who the hell would come at someone dressed like this with a knife?
But then again, if we learned nothing from Ewoks v. Empire...
Tricky. Aramid polymers (such as Kevlar or Twaron) are a few times stronger per weight unit than steel. Thus a suit made of steel would be a few times heavier than its polymer counterpart. Thus I'd think there's little interest in such beasts.
One interesting snippet though is that bulletproof vests are not knife resistant and knife-resistant vests are not bulletproof. This has to do with the type of weave.
You are mixing "strength." Aramid polymers are not stronger than steel if your measure is bending it. They may be able to stop a bullet with a few times less material, but that's not a measure of "strength." If solid parts are so bad, why are the ballistic plates solid inserts into bullet proof armor? Solid is better than fabric sometimes. The benefit of this suit is not the suit as he makes it. He can't make it as it should be made. It should be lightweight but strong sandwiches of cermaics and steel, covered in a woven fabric (Kevlar, if you wish) bonded to it. Something with some form holding capabilities (the steel) added impact resistance (the cermaics), and penetration stopping (the fabric) all made into an armor patter like the one he laid out.
With the right materials, his would be bulletproof and knifeproof, just like you mention is difficult to do. It would also be lighter than people expect, though it would still probably be very bulky.
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In this video, he claims that the built-in AC unit is powered by powerpacks on the back of the helmet with solar recharging capability. (I presume the headlights are powered by the same packs.) FWIW, there are battery packs with extremely long field-use durability. Nothing incredible, but enough to keep the guy suited for an 8 hour mission before he has to visit the charger to swap battery packs.
Getting back to the Yucca Mountain thread the other day, they *could* use some of that material for batteries that never die, or at least recharge themselves. Unfortunately, I doubt the military would want to take the chance of any radioisotopes getting into the hands of enemy combatants.
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The LEDs aren't there to illuminate the person's head... they're there to be flashlights (did you look at the pictures at all?). I'm not sure why you'd want a laser to point at snipers but the location is a good one - you just have to look at them to point.
The government does not have enough money to buy standard body armor for the soliers in Iraq in 2007, they won't buy this. It is too heavy, the soldiers are already carrying too much on their backs. It is not "powered" so its not going to lighten their load, and it does not have climate control, protection against radiation, chemical, biological or telekenetic attacks. It would be better and cheaper to build a fleet of machines to go into battle than to pour money into something like this.
I think radio controlled airplanes with bombs and guns would blast this thing into oblivion and be much cheaper to build and deploy.
But don't forget folks, this is still oppression gear. Have your laughs, because they're not building this stuff to oppress towel heads overseas, they're building this stuff to kick in your door, when you're hacking at 2400 hours, after 3 jolts of coffee and downloading your happy warez. Remember, violent offenders get out on good behaviour after raping women, while you, as a "l33t haxor" and "warez d00dz" will likely never see the sun again.
Its you that'll be facing the robo troopers, not the "bad guys". The bad guys will already have the anti robo trooper guns.
Anyone remember Kevin Mitnick arrested as if he was Wesley Snipes, at the point of several dozen M16's? Yeah... the "lethal" "warrior" Kevin "pudge" Mitnick. You, could be the next Mitnick.
Just my ten cents. Hope you spend it well.
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Inspecting a pair jeans to ensure that it meets fit for use standards means a visual inspection on an assembly line. A single worker can inspect a few pairs of jeans per minute. And if a unit passes inspection without being fit for use, the manufacturer, at most, has to refund the wholesale cost of a single pair of jeans /if/ the consumer complains about it.
Inspecting body armor to ensure that it meets fit for use standards means a pain-staking, time-consuming inspection which includes hitting it with several types of ordinance and exposing it to all sorts of chemicals. Further, statistical analysis must be done so to ensure that the the sample size takes the percentage of units that will be suitable for use in the field to at least three (if not four or five) nines. If a unit passes inspection without being fit for use, someone may die or be critically wounded and the manufacturer may be subject to recalling entire lots of thousands of units if not subjected to a huge product liability law suit.
Don't confuse fitness for use with the armor fitting a soldier. The two have very little to do with each other.
I believe it is because the Humvee is designed to be an all purpose vehicle, and the guns can be quickly mounted or dismounted depending on what they need the vehicle for. The Humvee is a truck first, and an armed platform second - quite the opposite of a tank or howitzer.
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Dude, where can I purchase one of these "AK47s" or "30-06s"? I can barely get 60 fps out of my current video card. And, what resolution are these babies pulling those kinds of frame rates on?
(I'm a jackass. I know.)
For one thing, the primary risk is not from above, but from below (IEDs) and the sides (IEDs, small arms, RPGs), so that's where you should concentrate any additional armor. For another, there are limits to how much further the HUMVEE can be modified: it's already slow and dangerously prone to rollovers because of all the added armor, and adding armor to the top of the turret is going to make those problems even worse.
No worries. I just checked my email and I have been approved for five mortgages and sixteen unsecured credit cards this week alone.
Here's what we know:
1. The suit exists
2. Cancer exists
3. Flashlights exist
4. He has one (suit and flashlight)
5. He doesn't have cancer
Therefore he has cured cancer because 5 comes after 1. I don't think anyone can argue with that (especially when put in bullet format). If anyone needs more convincing I can put this into a 35 page PowerPoint document for further truthiness.
Swi
Another purpose for armor was to protect against arrows. Without armor a simple arrow can disable or kill any opponent. Why use swords if arrows work so much better? Armor (and shields) allowed armies to pass under waves of arrows to finally attack their opponents. Armor can actually get in the way when in hand to hand combat. The extra weight reduces your speed and stamina. And regardless of how good your armor is, there will always be holes. Should an opponent have a significant advantage in speed they will find those holes and win. If tired and weighted down, your opponent will have a significant advantage in speed.
So you are absolutely right about "1-2 disabling blows deflected by armour" but I would like to add that arrows make up a significant portion of those disabling blows. In fact, look into the history of warfare for different regions and you'll see that armor gets stronger along with bows getting more powerful. I would argue that increased armor is a result of more powerful bows + armor piercing arrowheads.
Willy
Depends on the knife, a robust Swiss Army Knife has a can opener inlcuded.
Parent has a very funny and insightful post BTW.
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Unless they've changed pintle ring mounts since I was in the service, swapping guns is *less* than a 5-minute job. This isn't really a turret, it's a pintle on a rotating ring mount. You pretty much carry the gun to the vehicle, drop it on the pintle, and away you go. There are some specialized weapons that may require more complicated mounting, but I haven't seen one on that type of mount.
There's still Mark Maughan's point that it's cheaper than a hospital bill.
I'll use US soldiers for an example because that's what I'm familiar with.
Injured soldier:
Hospital: approx $6k/day
Artificial limb: ~$3k
Flying home on medivac: $10k
Dead Soldier:
$250k insurance policy(he pays for it, but it's heavily subsidized)
$100k death gratuity for dying in a war zone/hostile action
In either case you have the loss of a trained soldier to worry about.
It quickly adds up. It pays off exceptionally well if you give it to the soldiers who are 1% or more likely to die in the line of duty of something this would prevent, and about 10% likely to suffer an injury requiring medivac to an out of theater hospital and extensive rehab or seperation from service.
As for mass production, he's obviously tested the suit, possibly multiple suits, though it's probable that he's simply repaired the one after shooting it. Heck, that'd be a benefit right there. Replacing a $500 breastplate after being shot is still cheaper than replacing an entire $1.5k intercepter vest. Well, at least $1250 of it, it's $250 each for the front and back plates, and one may still be usable. Once shot the vest itself is to be discarded.
Buy a few thousand of them and the fact you completely destroy ten suits in testing would still add less than $10 to the cost.
I don't read AC A human right
So if these suits do catch on, and if they are really bullet proof, maybe we'll have to go back to pick-axes and other medieval weapons that were used against the knights. The evening news would be much cooler to watch police taking out a suited up robber with a shield and a pick.=, instead of some lousy shoot out.
..........FULL STOP.
Good point about the replacement; Medical costs are folded in with the 'hospital stay' daily rate.
8 weeks of basic training would be $3k for the salary of the trainee alone, then you figure another $400 to feed him, $800 for his 'share' of the drill instructor.
Then you have the advanced combat training. Another 8 or so weeks(varies by specialty and enviroment), at $4k for the trainee's salary(been promoted), Another $1k because you have more personal training being conducted. Food, housing etc...
Call it $10k and 4-6 months to get yourself a basic squaddie.
As for the fitting, well, I'd do it the way I want to do weapons. You're issued your equipment, to include weapon, gas mask, and armor along with the more convential uniform items & duffel bag.
Well, come to think of it, the armor could be issued when the recruit reports for advanced combat training or is assigned to a combat position. That way the suit might fit a bit better, as most trainees gain weight once out of basic/boot.
I don't read AC A human right