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Australian Army Invests in Electrical Shirts
Stony Stevenson writes "The Australian Defence Department has injected $4.4 million worth of funding to further Australia's national science agency's (the CSIRO) research into designing clothing which can be used as a self-recharging electrical source on the battlefield. The Defence Department is hoping the technology can be used to replace cumbersome disposable batteries that soldiers must carry on the battlefield. The Flexible Integrated Energy Device (FIED) will be used to store and provide energy over a continuous period of time. It can be charged by either vibration energy harvesting or through plugging into an electrical power point."
As long as it can keep beer cold.
Then I could have constant battery charging.
Unfortunately I don't think these will be able to make enough power to fully power a decent computer but it would be able to do small thing like civilian uses such as cell phones/PDAs or a more military application of radios which would be great in combat away from power outlets, but I really want the civilian use so I can enjoy this too! Must be expensive to produce though.
Next time I button-up incorrectly, will be the last time.
Or worse, I will be out of electricity because all clothes got burnt in the previous bombing.
Thats great, now they just need to give out a load of free pin ups pics so they can all get to work cranking up a good charge to power their gear.
"Please plug yourself into a wall outlet for termination if you are ever captured by hostile forces."
This means that while it is perfectly possible in theory for soldiers to charge batteries by running around, they will have to exert that extra energy themselves. I doubt that any soldiers (already heavily laden with weapons, body-armour and other gear) will want to wear suit that requires more energy from you for movements than normal suits.
Are they going to look like Dynamo from the movie ''Running man''?
If not, I'm not interested.
Magazine 13 - We like to think its funny... sort of
...if [the extra exertion required to charge this shirt] is less than or equal to [the energy needed to haul around those batteries the shirt will be replacing], then it's a net win. In fact, even if the shirt requires more exertion, it might still be worth it not to have to worry, "Do I have my batteries with me today?" "Are my batteries charged?"
Maybe they should be investing in armor which give a soldier a "high degree of agility, stealth and physical endurance" instead.
Just for those of you that may not be familiar with the term: Grunt
I thought our politicians only saw it fit to buy decommissioned US junk, such as 30 year-old helicopters, and the odd fleet of dud tanks and fighter jets. Perhaps this is Howard's idea of renewable resources. Personally, I'd rather just put the grunts put to work in a more economic - imagine how much clean energy we could produce if we took our soldiers from the bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lined them up in a big grid of treadmill generators. We could put a picture of Kylie Minogue in front of them, and maybe a picture of Bin Laden behind her. This would pretty much motivate the lot of them.
The extra weight of the clothing is offset by not having to carry the extra batteries. So it shouldn't place anymore weight on the troop. I know it's much more convenient for me to wear a loaded photographers vest than it is to carry the bag. Same weight, but the distribution of that weight on your shoulders feels much better at the end of the day.
My concerns are these.
What's this vest made of? If a trooper takes a bullet through the vest, what type of stuff from the vest is going to follow the bullet into the body?
If this shirt is meant to be worn under armor then what impact does the constraint of being sandwiched between the body and the armor have on the overall effectiveness of the shirt?
If the shirt is meant to be worn over the armor, is there any redundancy to the power generation when the shirt takes a hit? With batteries, the trooper could always ask a buddy for a spare battery. Asking for the shirt from your buddies back, in combat, would probably be looked on negatively.
...hoping the technology can be used to replace cumbersome disposable batteries that soldiers must carry on the battlefield. The Flexible Integrated Energy Device (FIED) will be used to store and provide energy over a continuous period of time. It can be charged by either vibration energy harvesting or through plugging into an electrical power point." Just curiousDo it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
This may require some extra care in using today's less-lethal weapons.... lest the tazer become the tazee!
Ut Tensio, Sic Vis
Come on... Flexible Rechargeable Integrated Energy Device is much better. I'd wear a fried shirt - wouldn't you?
Build some solar cells into their helmets.
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Sooner or later this kind of tech is going to result in a stilsuit. Hope so anyway, those things are just too cool not to be instantiated.
Seriously though, if we colonise mars, they will be more then interesting, they may well be essential.
Frank Herbert had way more right than people realise. Except for the spice thing, but if I have this right, in his original musings on the story, spice wasn't as important, and it was Stilgar, not Paul Atraides who was to be the major character.
The laws of thermodynamics hold perfectly true, but it's not a simple closed system. This system sounds as if it is harvesting waste energy. (the running that the soldier is already doing) The extra effort exists in the weight of the unit, but since it replaces another, chemical battery system, the tradeoff will likely be negligible.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I meant Liet Kiens, not Stilgar
... so they can shove it.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Let me guess... Nylon?
now the question will be "did my shirt get mixed in with the non-electrical laundry?"
and "will this thing shock me everytime it rains?"
I know soldiers are going to be eager to strap F-IED's to their bodies.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"Furthermore, energy can be shared on the battlefield by hugging."
I must say that both me and Maria Conchita Alonso find that there's nothing funny about a dickless moron with a battery up his ass. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/quotes
Particularly when they don't make him waterproof.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Tales of Dead Men's Shirts.
In which the British Army is discomoded by explosions on the tails of military shirts. Is it sabotage? Is it a dastardly plot to sell more underpants? Read on.....
Used on soldiers today, tomorrow entire continents may be powered by small children on sugar dressed in overalls made this way.
Just don't let them go swimming wearing that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Remember the Half-Life expansion pack, Opposing Force? Remember what our friend Adrian Shephard was wearing during the Black Mesa incident? A "powered combat vest". I wonder if they'll start issuing a heavy pipe-wrench with those PCV's anytime soon. Maybe they've got crabs in the deserts down there, headcrabs!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7072741.stm
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If a soldier gets shot? What would typically be a bad flesh wound now has an electric battery system thrown in there as well...
Shock shirts: soldiers will _always_ obey their orders without any hesitation.
There you are, staring at me again.
Now if we could only apply this principle in the office - imagine the potential power wasted by not harvesting all the hot air generated in meetings.
Being able to walk up to someone and say "Touch my shirt" and watching them fry like flies on a bug zapper would be priceless.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Sounds like a Halo Situation
perhaps Dr Freeman's suit in HL 2....
Uhh.. a comment like this makes me think I gotta quit playing games for awhile.
First let's estimate how much of your body motion you would not mind having drained off. Let's say you're walking, that takes about 0.05 horsepower. Let's assume you would not mind having some VERY STIFF pants that siphon off 10% of your walking power. That's 0.005 of a horsepower.
Then let's assume that the motion sensors are 20% efficient, which is rather high for your typical piezo squeeze transducer. So we have a whole 0.001 of a horsepower. Convert to watts, and that's 750 milliwatts. Assume you're walking 30% of the day, that's 250 milliwatt-hours per day. A single AA lithium cell can put out 4 watt-hours, so this whole nasty stiff-pants thing can be replaced at a cost of ONE AA cell every SIXTEEN days.
Doesn't sound like the stiff pants are a win-win for anybody, anywhere.
Time out while I recharge my shirt!
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Nothing like putting a shiney target on yourself to make your enemy's day that much easier. There's a reason why combat uniforms don't have bright bits of metal for insignia like the dress uniforms.
RTGs.
Where does it say that the suits/shirts will require more movement? Most people move on a regular basis...just suppose for a moment that this includes those in the military. You see they already move and would already be generating some energy for the suit. Perhaps this is the whole idea?
Colonel: Sargeant, your men are all bedraggled looking! I thought they were in tip top shape! A 40 mile march shouldn't have them this beaten.
Sargeant: I don't know what could be wrong, sir. We just gave them these new shirts so they don't even have to carry their batteries anymore.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Just make sure you never wear it to an airport! Something like that would get you shot as a "terrorist" for sure...
Hope it's not made by Sony, otherwise it doubles as a suicide bomber vest.
The article is skimpy on details, I got this after a bit of digging around. There are 4 primary modes of the suit
1. Strength
2. Speed
3. Armor
4. Cloak
Oh and you need $500 graphics card and Vista to run it. More details here.
This just in!!! "Australian Army to only be deployed in dry locations"
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I wonder how one of these 'shirts' would take a bullet? Would it gracefully handle the damage? Would it quit working all together? Would it become a liability and potentially leak, overheat, explode and/or poison the soldier?
;)
I didn't RTFA, but I doubt it addresses these issues anyway.
Then again... whatever penetrated the 'shirt' would probably be priority in a moment like that. Taking the shirt off before it explodes 3 city blocks would be the second concern.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Jeez, why not just paint a bullseye on Uluru, and while you're at it put a big sign nearby saying "Invade now, while we've still got 40% of the worlds bauxite!"
Right, no more fighting at night. Let the buggers sleep or drink beer
I hope I'm not divulging military secrets when I mention the obvious (but no doubt patentable) allure of using piezoelectric material in the uniforms of field soldiers. This material would generate significant voltage upon the impact of larger bullets, shrapnel, dirty bombs, flying debris and blows from the enemies' rifle butts. An active warrior would be a veritable powerplant as he braves the front lines with his modern garb. Even the final impact of his body crashing to the ground would generate electricity.
...omphaloskepsis often...
As long as it is compatible with front loaders ... win!
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