Slashdot Mirror
Human Exoskeletons Getting Closer
ColdWetDog writes "It's not Sigourney Weaver tossing aliens about, but The Register has an interesting blurb about a real human-capable exoskeleton that looks pretty cool (Lockheed-Martin press release). Runs for three hours at 3 mph on internal batteries; max speed is 7 mph. Of course, no price is listed but I suppose if you have to ask you can't afford it. Team this up with a Big Dog and you've got the ultimate high-tech cross-country team. Bring your own batteries. Or just wait for your jetpack to arrive."
Seems you have to stand spread-eagle and shout "Power Extreme" to start it up :(
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Max speed is 10 not 7.
Companies have been making exoskeletons ever since the "Hardiman" of the 1960s. While more modern versions have actually bordered on the practical (see the suit worn by Ripley in the movie Aliens... that is a real machine), they have always had to drag a power tether in order to do anything useful. Of course they did not show that part in the movie.
The decision to do away with arms, for now, was probably a good one. One can still carry heavy loads, which is the main point.
http://www.mobile-download.net/
This definitely reminds me of the vest that you wear in Half Life: Opposing Force, or Gordon Freeman's HEV. It can be run off of a power source, helps you lift things better, has optional attachments, cooling systems... huh. Does it come with a crowbar?
The Honda Walking Assist device has a rather unique and elegant design:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2191712/honda_walking_assist/
I don't hate America, I love it. I wish only the best things for this country.
But I hate articles like this, and I hate the truly American values it reveals.
Why is it that when Americans think of powered exoskeletons, the first thing they think of is soldiers? It's really sad that militaristic thinking has pervaded almost every facet of our society.
Compare that to Japan's take on exoskeletons. Over there, they think of how these things can be used in day-to-day activities to help people. It's a far cry from a fat-ass soldier lugging around a giant backpack and a gun.
I can only hope that the wisdom of the American people that was so on display when Obama was elected will bring an end to our fascination and worship of our military.
Projects like this are always limited by a single factor: energy density.
Loads of heavy batteries that only seem to last an hour or so, or loud, smelly, fault-prone ICEs are par for the course. See, millions of years of evolution have resulted in bodies that are surprisingly efficient in a wide variety of circumstances and pack loads of energy into a very little weight. When your body truly runs out of energy in sustained exhaustion, it can even burn its own motor (muscle tissue) for a last bit of energy!
The problems are many and severe. It will be a while before exoskeletons are worth much.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The user can hump 200lb with relative ease while marching in a HULC
So...many...jokes...
If it's built off of hydraulics why not just used compressed gas? You could give your soldiers the ability to lift thousands of pounds. Tanks that can hold thousands of pounds of pressure don't weigh very much and they take a while to empty as well.
Then you could pull it at ground level no back problems, saves bazillions of dollars.
Wake me when I can buy one of these...
http://cdecas.free.fr/robots/tekkaman.php
Some left over shells, anti tank mines or some other quality Italian, Soviet, German, East bloc or Chinese explosives.
Dig a hole, fill it up and wait for for their turn to be part of 'change'.
If they can take out your main battle tanks, a nerd on speed in mech suit is as easy as a sand sailor driving a Rumsfield limited.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yeah
The power requirements mean it will have to dissipate huge amounts of heat, generate lots of noise which means it'll essentially be carrying a "shoot me!" sign and individuals without any form of body power assist can already kill tanks, bring down helicopter gunships etc.
As a form of fork lift I can see some advantages in logistics, but not on the sharp end of a military.
Deleted
Or just wait for your jetpack to arrive.
One step ahead of you, mate.
http://www.martinjetpack.com/
Some folks at the dull end love this because they see how much more a solider can carry. There's a practical limit of around 50 pounds of gear a solider can take on their person. What that gear is suppose to be and really is can vary. There's some great stories about differing philosophies to armor plate inserts, not only between the Brass and the guys in the field but between guys in the field because of how heavy it is.
Alot of brass loves the idea of 200 pound loads because they can put everything they think is useful on a solider and have them run faster with bigger loads and maybe a bigger gun. Which is pretty much why you have something like a humvee or a Stryker.
Course the actual use for this in military applications alone will take several years of practical use to really figure out. Might be great for special forces in certain situations (or might suck depending on Opforce). Definitely potential in logistics and things like setting up bases when 'man portable' equipment can be moved by one person quickly.
Private sector applications will also take a long while to sniff out. I can see surveyors and firefighters have this be a huge ideal. Imagine a firefighter with cooling systems installed. The best hope of the military here is to figure out these uses quick so if the whole super-suit bit fails the uses elsewhere still get them the respect the project deserves.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
Anyone else notice in the video that the user seems to be dragging his weight with his hands while crawling. The legs are not assisting him at all.
Am I the only person to see the uses? I want an air conditioner when I step outside. I want to not be limited to my own physical strength. I want to run without getting tired. I want to walk down to the hardware store... for 50 bricks and some fertilizer. I want to jump up onto my house's roof. I want a backup air supply just in case. And since I'm not limited by weight, why not a backup com system, a palmtop computer, a couple of extra batteries, a first aid kit, a change of clothing, and the other stuff people put in their cars and have to go back to their cars for. I want to lay aside concerns of endurance. I want to carry my six years old son about all day. I want to jack up my car by looking around for a sturdy piece of something, lifting that side of the car, and propping it up. I want to carry home six shopping bags without sweating. I want to carry heavy boxes sometimes. I want to wear a set of airbags that will tripple my chances of surviving most accidents. I want to punch through a wall, throw a big rock, run up to the top of a skyscraper. I want to hike to the top of Mount Fuju without stopping OR taking 6 months to get into shape. I want to take my dog out for a run at his speed. I want to climb mountains after learning how, not after an extensive weightlifting regime. I want to transplant a tree without heavy equipment. I want to fight a bear, catch a horse, hold down an aligator. I want to say a permanent goodbye to being physically inferior to any animal. I want to clean my house all day, play with my sons for hours, fix my roof, and mow the lawn without getting too tired. I want this suit!
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
minus a million cool points, he's not exactly iron man!
Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
I'm perfectly happy with my endoskeleton as it is thank you!!
Oh i can have both! didn't RTFA.
I'm just looking forward to an hepatic virtual suit spin off.
I just want to beat Tiger Woods.
A man-sized armored target (there's a mention of sticking armor on it) is still very hard to kill, the usual anti-infantry weapons will be less effective (only the big ones will even hurt it) while the antitank weapons are designed for much larger targets. IEDs can damage anything but while they may be demoralizing and look bad in the news of the target's home country they are no serious way of stopping an army. Of course it's not going to bring losses to zero but it's going to make your dudes a whole lot harder to kill.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The power requirements mean it will have to dissipate huge amounts of heat, generate lots of noise which means it'll essentially be carrying a "shoot me!" sign
And currently human soldiers generate no heat, and are completely silent. </sarcasm>
I get your point, but I don't think this would make significant difference to the visibility of a soldier. Simply not using it on the front lines, where mobility and stealth might be needed would negate your point. If it's for carrying heavy loads then it's probably more likely to be used behind the front lines, for support and simply carrying stuff that might otherwise have required two men, or a vehicle.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
I wonder how those energy-dense batteries would behave in the proximity of the heat/shock wave of an explosion. Or what if someone lodges a bullet in the battery-pack...
...according to the place where I get my news.
"a tremendous portion of the American annual budget goes toward the Military-Industrial Complex"
Ah yes, I know, this is slashdot, and I'm going to get modded troll/flaimbait, but just for your edification, our Federal government was created with a very limited amount of powers in mind, most of which were focused DIRECTLY at military affairs. I'm not sure why people whine and complain that the government spends tons of cash on defense but not on XYZ, when its the job of the government to spend money on defense.
For a list of enumerated powers (not the squishy interpreted ones), check out:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8
I'm glad to see the government spend money on things it is SUPPOSE to... now if it would just cut out the shit that its not (like social security, Medicare, ponies, butterflies, and good will towards men).
20th century Marxism is not progress...
You could have RTFA?
Not so the HULC; four pounds of lithium polymer batteries will run the exoskeleton for an hour walking at 3mph, according to Lockheed. Speed marching at up to 7mph reduces this somewhat; a battery-draining "burst" at 10mph is the maximum speed.
... wearing Techno-Trousers. :-)
Isn't Sigourney every geek's dream woman??
BOGUS! Sorry, but as nice an idea as this is, the video is a CONCEPT not a product. Watch how the person stands while carrying the supposed enormous weights. The balance (center of gravity) is wrong unless the packs are very light. Additionally, there are too few servos to act torsionally on the legs. There is nothing to act on side to side motion of legs. Compare this with the Japanese versions and you can see that this device is powered by the human, not the motors/pistons. The very idea that the device supports weight even when batteries are depleted is ludicrous. That might help in a stiff-legged march down hill, but will not help once the knee is bent. Sorry, nice video, no credibility.
I'm looking forward to a powered endoskeleton, personally
And a lot more scary, too!
I don't know why they don't just rename it the second bible and get it over with already. Ever think things may have changed in a few hundred years or that you got some things wrong? Its not some higher powers will, you are allowed to question it. You know it was written by fallible men.. Yet so many americans treat it as otherwise.
In Soviet Russia, exoskeleton wears you!
Really? My desktop computer consumes about 220watts and is about 30dB with all my fans (quiet fans). According to TFA, this exoskeleton eats up about 250 watts, alot of which will be used up in motion. 95% of the 220 watts in my computer go directly to heat, because the only moving parts are small fans.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
The internet itself exists because the US military was seeking a way to maintain communications in the event that a major city was destroyed with an atomic bomb, causing a disruption in telephone communications.
Why, oh why do people keep trotting out this tired old myth?
The ARPANet wasn't created to survive a nuclear holocaust. Hey geniuses, it used common (though pricey and high speed) telco circuits - the same as carried telephone communications. They weren't hardened or anything like that. Explain to me how they'd stay put when everything else went kablooie?
The original purpose of the ARPANet was to allow resource sharing between research centers with computing resources that were being funded by and/or involved in defense level research. Even after the first dozen-odd IMPs (routers of their day, and amazingly only refrigerator sized, compared to the behemoths that they interconnected), they weren't even hardened.
Ironically, it would be over 20 years from the inception of the ARPANet that there would be a sufficiently large number of nodes and more imporantly links to give the Internet the level of robustness that might give it a reasonable chance of surviving an all out nuclear attack, the kind that people continually champion as its original raison d'être.
Anyone who's interested in learning more should really read the excellent book, _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_.
Wake me up when we have a suit using muscle wires.
Real as in "In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry creatures from Aplha Centauri.". The load lifter in Aliens, now that was a REAL machine.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If the powers of the government are not those listed in the constitution, then what are the powers? Can they do literally anything they (the government currently in power) want to do?
Yes, things have changed in a few hundred years. That's why the constitution can be amended. You know, someone proposes an amendment, we talk about it, people vote on it, etc. You can't just say 'things are different' and then ignore it because then there is no basis for discussion of what the government can or should do.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
After the first rocket, artillery round, mortar shell or bomb go off you won't have to worry about the enemy hearing you at all. Even training with earplugs in, your ears are ringing after a live-fire exercise and that's with the shells detonating at a "safe" distance, not right on top of you.
As for heat - a human already shows up pretty well in infrared - especially at night since the ground is cool.
Sure, an unassisted human can carry a variety of weapons that can damage armor or helicopters. However, do you have any idea how much all that stuff weighs? In general, you have as many infantrymen as you can carry one shell or rocket. If you can add even 30-40 pounds to what they can carry, that goes way up. If we call it 20 pounds for a rocket, then we can carry 3 of them instead of 1, tripling the available ammunition.
If it actually does allow carrying up to 200 pounds, that means you can grab someone who is injured and carry them to help at 7 MPH. THAT is probably one of the best things about it. Carrying someone, you might manage 7 MPH for a short sprint but, if you have to go any distance, you are lucky to average 3 MPH. Disclaimer: These numbers are based on personal experience/guesstimation and may not reflect reality.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Developing things like this is expensive. There is one source of money which is available for speculative projects with no immediate application. Government projects. The military(especially in the US) being one of the biggest spenders on this type of stuff, is a prime source. Therefore military applications should be the first thing considered.
I'm glad to see the government spend money on things it is SUPPOSE to... now if it would just cut out the shit that its not (like social security, Medicare, ponies, butterflies, and good will towards men).
I think you mean, if it would just cut out the shit that its not, like harassing citizens, taking away our basic freedoms, incarcerating people for "crimes" which have no victim, legislating morality...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've seen Tom Hanks using this.
Run Forrest run!
The logical conclusion would be to add 200lbs of armor plating to the soldier. Then they would upgrade it to 400lbs, and add more plating. Until they're finally wearing nuclear powered backpacks powering a suit that weighs close to 1000lbs and is able to resist nearly every type of hit while being able to wield ordinance that are typically mounted on top of jeeps and other vehicles.
Runs for three hours at 3 mph (5 Km/h) on internal batteries; max speed is 7 mph (11 Km/h).
Seriously, what will happens when all these gadgets fail on the BF ? Will the "untrained-I-rely-on-gadget" soldier be able to get out of there ?
The U.S. might be the bigger army, but they really rely too much on gadgetry. Leaner is better. Also , as someone in the cnd army who have done three tour in Afghanistan told me once : The best army would consist of UK Officers and Canadian soldiers. These are the best soldier, in better shape, badass and extremely disciplined. Add the French Canadian wich are fearless badasses and you pretty much have a lean and mean army. Ask the germans during WWII and WWI what they tought about the Red Devils and the Vandoos. On the other hand the u.s. rely on gadget and sheer numbers of (lower quality) soldiers. The Empire is crumbling. Really. Oh and yes I am a proud Canadian.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That's why the Constitution provides for amendments. We've ratified 27 of them over the past 220+ years. You don't just start ignoring the parts you find inconvenient, as Democrats (with their blather of a "living Constitution") are wont to do; that way lies madness (or, more specifically, lawlessness). If it's not getting the job done, you propose an amendment. Get two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-fourths of state legislatures to sign off on it, and it becomes part of the highest law of the land. (Those supermajority requirements keep the Constitution from being amended for trivial purposes.)
Given that our form of government has far outlasted most others in existence at the time of its founding, I kinda suspect that the founding fathers actually were a bit smarter than the average bear. They're certainly a damn sight better than the chuckleheads who infest DC nowadays.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
As a past aero-medevac tech (Fighting Unicorns!), anything to help with all the lugging stuff about would be a great help. Add in the fact that we were anywhere from 5-10 miles back from the front line, wouldn't be a lot of issues with another machine running.
I drank what? -- Socrates
unique and elegant design:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2191712/honda_walking_assist/
You're half right.
You can't take the sky from me...
Why is it that when Americans think of powered exoskeletons, the first thing they think of is soldiers?
He asked on the evolved version of a DARPA funded network.
You can't take the sky from me...
What, no references to the Mechanically Automated NeuroTransmitter Interactive System?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'll be impressed when it lets me transform into a ball and roll through some conveniently placed tubing.
Human exoskeletons aren't "getting closer" -- they're already on the market. I'm sure Lockheed is successfully making them cost like a cool million apiece or something, but they've had them in Japan for over 5 years. They're used for nursing etc... if someone is old and feeble they can put one on. If someone is taking care of someone old and feeble, they can put one on and be able to safely lift whoever they are taking care of. I think the ones there were about $100,000 back then. Of course, those ones are for helping people, not killing them.
Ah yes, I know, this is slashdot, and I'm going to get modded troll/flaimbait, but you ever notice how starting out your post with "Ah yes, I know, this is slashdot, and I'm going to get modded troll/flaimbait," never gets modded troll/flaimbait, except for this post?
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Now, where's my pony?
I saw a new paperback copy of "Triplanetary" in my local store the other day. Looks like somebody decided to reprint the series.
Ever think things may have changed in a few hundred years or that you got some things wrong?
Undoubtedly. However if the power of government is not limited by a document, if they can simply ignore the contract when it's convenient, then what does limit it? What prevents it from becoming tyranny?
The proper thing to do when changing conditions make the terms of a contract undesirable is to mutually agree to scrap the contract and write a new one. Or to sever the those terms and amend new ones. There's nothing particularly religious about sticking to a contract.
I had to quote the title to make the response more obviously from the Epistles of Stooge:
"Slo-o-o-owly they turned.
Step by step.
Inch by inch...."
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
HULC is interesting not only for the listed performance, but the added details. Seems that there is a Jet8 fueled powersource also in development that gives much longer runtimes. I think it's safe to assume that the powerplant is either a microturbine, a fuelcell, or a hybrid microturbine fuelcell where the fuelcell is the combustor.
There is also related work on using the energy source as a common powerplant for an electric motorcycle carried by HULC, to provide rapid transport and self deployment. There is the interesting question on how much such wheeled transportation should be directly integrated. Examples being putting the wheels on the calves/feet, or as separate swingarms that swing down from the back area, perhaps mounted on the hips.
To visualize, examples from japanese anime being the predominant examples;
1. The landspinner powered wheel auxillaries mounted on the feet of Knightmare frames in Code Geass
2. The leg wheels on Votoms AT's
3. The IGPX racer mecha
4. Rideback robotic motocycles
5. Mospeda motorcycle power armor
I already saw this video... maybe one year ago, maybe more. It was news at its time. Now, it's only a free advert on Slashdot.
-Ignacio Agullo
never been fully unbiasedly examined at all.
Only when you see the variety of programs available for linux do you realise that innovation without war-time motivation exists and works too.
Saying that without war, civlization would not progress is going contrary even to the (cough) Microsoft empire.
An alternate system is not only possible, it might be better in quality and diversity too. Man gets motivated better by fame and a permanent place in history than by a war for disposing off old technology or for world domination.
It's the closed source feudal way. The other way also exists - I dont think the Dutch invented their windmills at that time because of wars, nor did the Chinese printing.
Nor did India some of mathematics.
Nor did most spiritual (NOT religion, mind you, but metaphysics) movements that have lasted.
Nor did all the creative garment and spice industries.
It's the dirty businesses like narcotics, alcohol, sex, and weapons that help create today's "advanced" society. Patents and Intellectual property did not exist when the Anlgosaxons literally plundered the knowledge and treasures of ancient civilizations. And then to use the worst few means to advocate the social progress angle is the biggest example of organized hypocrisy. sure, call me a troll, but if some way is obtained to show the African or Asian origin of the metal and gold and diamonds in the western world, in banks, in safes and vaults and so on, - if we do a "DNA test" on that metal and it turns out not Anglo Saxon and if it's trails lead to historical events like the Gold Rush, and the British East India company, will you be willing to give back the minerals?
This is not black or white, mostly it is case-by-case but saying that war helps science invent is ridiculous, passionate scientists always find new ways to tinker and question and investigate. It's the feudal past of the Anglo Saxon culture that makes it look like that is the best rsult of war. War has NO good results. Not even technological progress.
And at the cost that the world is paying?
No. Never. Why is the same not said by other countries of the world? Why do even the BRIC nations, leave aside the smaller European nations, innovate without wars?
It is a very large scale hypocrisy and propaganda movement. That explains why the internet makes every power centre cry foul at every chance they get. Had Nikola Tesla been innovating today, he would most likely have give the world much more than he he gave back then, because he would not be doing patents (because patents would not have existed as such a detrimental block) but would probably doing something like worldchanging.com
WAR has NO good results. Period.
The LockMart solution is a pale attempt to duplicate what Japan has already started to mass product the HAL-5 System (Cyberdyne www.cyberdyne.jp) Which is 1000 different ways far superior to what LockMart is trying to produce. I know because I have had the actual misfortune of seeing a live demo, and it sucks, What we should have done is take the HAL-5 system as a core unit and then make it better, even convert it into a Mjolnir type of suit.... Or Better yet, kick LockMart off the contract and just give the contract to Cyberdyne for HAL-5 mass production units! IMHO
The current version seems to only provide about an hour or so of powered use, which to me appears useless in a typical (and its intended) military application. However, looking at the size of it and the load it supports, I do think there is a particular application this technology might be able to do wonders for. If this thing can be made to withstand heat to some extent, this thing would be awesome for firefighting. The one hour endurance isn't so bad then, because that's about how long an air tank lasts, so the get-in and get-out time matches up just fine. Now imagine the power assist taking the load of the airtank and protection gear off of the firefighter (which already is quite heavy), also imagine it supporting additional cooling or better protective gear that is too heavy to currently implement. In turn the firefighter can move much faster and use their own strength and stamina for actually rescuing people. I think fire departments and rescue equipment manufacturers should seriously start looking into this type of technology as a force multiplier used for saving lives. I know there's money in pitching it to the military, but it might be smarter for Lockheed to make it available for civil uses where the design is much closer to already meeting the demands.
Wow. You'd want to live in a 1700s country for the rest of your life? Because that's what's going to happen if the government spends like a 1700s government. For fuck's sake - governments, just like everything else on the planet, need to change with the times. Human kind has learned a great deal since the US was first created, and yet you are willing to flush that down the toilet just so the founding fathers were infallible? Muppet.
Pony-WNED!
Yes. Do please explain to the class about all the chuckleheaded Democrat blather about Terry Schiavo and FISA and the Patriot Act.
Right, that's all you need: An amendment. Such as the 18th Amendment, which was proof postive that the amendment system works brilliantly against trivial stuff. It also shows how good ideas can become permanent parts of our constitution, since the 18th's continuing presence in that hallowed document has given rise to wonderful, successful, completely constitutional government programs like the War on Drugs!
Too true, older is always better (why, it's the main qualification for successful racehorses, football linebackers, fashion models, cartons of milk, eggs...I could go on forever!). And US democracy is far older than, say, systems of government around in 1776 like, say, the Parliament of the UK. Of course, monarchy is old as dirt and has not completely died out, but really, who today pays any attention at all to petty kings and their tiny fiefdoms?
Or the pig-ignorant and/or thoughtless drones who seem to have inherited the rest of the USA from the Founders, and want to return it to a constitutional "reality" that never existed. Dude, before you post again, visit ClueMart.