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DIY 18-ft.-High Robotic Exoskeleton
Hacx sends along a piece from PopSci that begins "Carlos Owens had handled all kinds of machines as an army mechanic, but he always dreamed of using those skills for one project: his own 'mecha,' a giant metal robot that could mirror the movements of its human pilot. Owens, 31, began building an 18-foot-tall, one-ton prototype at his home in Wasilla, Alaska, in 2004. Working without blueprints, he first built a full-scale model out of wood. Moving on to steel, he had to devise a hydraulics system that would provide precisely the right leverage and range of movement. He settled on a complex network of cables and hydraulic cylinders that can make the mecha raise its arms, bend its knees, and even do a sit-up. ... He foresees mechas having uses in the military and the construction industry, but acknowledges that right now they're best suited to entertainment. The first application he has in mind: mecha-vs.-mecha battles, demolition-derby style."
There have been some military projects, but the problem is that anything which can lift over a tonne one-handed requires a power supply too big to attach to the suit itself.
How do you kill that which has no life?
In Here there's a video of an experimental Raytheon exoskeleton for the US army. It seems that we're a long way from seeing something like "starship troopers" especially because there's a conspicous umbilical cord in the Video, probably for the external power source and computer controls. While Moore's law can cope with computing requirements, there's nothing similar in power production, and especially in power density.
Novody would want a battery powered exoskeleton with a 10 minutes charge.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Here's the builder talking about it
Here's a really short video of it in action
I did say "power", but what I was referring to was the systems meant to support the suit's hydraulics. It would be more like a hose.
How do you kill that which has no life?
I'd say human design is also hard to balance and inefficient yet, that's how it turned out after hundreds of millions of years of evolution.
Well if you want to be able to go long distances you'd probably want all the hydraulics stuff self contained on the unit itself otherwise you're going to have to deal with some crazy pressures (or very large diameter hoses I suppose) and a lot of power to drive the fluid. I'm not a hydraulics expert but the company I do IT for design and manufacture dredgers that use hydraulics. Our normal dredgers would probably operate down to about 500 metres at most, not entirely sure, but we are designing a deep water (max of 3000 metres) system that has a self contained hydraulics system powered electrically from the surface. Obviously that would add a lot of extra bulk and complexity and it would probably be better just to use a bunch of electric motors instead?
which is totally what she said
He completed and was trying to sell the mech suit like 4 years ago. This story is almost as old as the internet itself. Slashdot's editors are really slacking these days.
I agree with you, in the context of a weapon. But consider how useful this could be for construction. The ability to lift large objects (like beams) into position could be quite useful.
A four-legged version might be more useful, however.
Place nail here >+
By Sarcos corporation. This one is a bit smaller, and has no grippers yet, but the arms and legs function. IN fact, the arms and legs are *more* agile and human-like than in the Aliens movie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhj3Z9o6t0g