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HULC Robotic Exoskeleton MK II Undergoing Tests
fergus07 writes "Lockheed Martin is putting an updated, ruggedized version of its HULC Robotic Exoskeleton through lab evaluation tests. The hydraulic 'power-suit,' which enables the wearer to carry up to 200 lbs and run at 10 mph, now boasts better protection from the elements, improved fitting and easier adjustment, increased run-time and new control software."
Yeah, I've seen the sci-fi movies. But this just seems stupid to me. It doesn't appear to be flexible. And flexible is what you need in combat.
I still want one. At 57 with a back that limits where I can go - a likely stripped down version that could assist hike 10 - 20 miles before recharging would be something I'd pay 4 figures for.
Screw the flying car, this thing could take off!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There are lots of models out there being developed for consumers with physical issues.
I'd rather see the government putting some money into those than trying to build something they saw on some crap Sci-Fi movie.
New control software huh? So those frequent UAC warnings every time you moved the leg a bit further than allowed changed your mind after all.
This is about funding something they saw in a sci-fi movie.
Yes, in the military you do spend a lot of time moving stuff from point A to point B.
Which is why the military has so many machines that do that. Machines that do not have fragile humans as an integral part of them.
Yes, it takes a bit more time to put the equipment on a pallet. But when something goes wrong, you don't have to send the forklift to the doctor to have its bones set. You can have the forklift back in operation in less than a day.
can you do both at the same time?
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Don't worry, you'll see all that being "tested" in the next war they buy.
ics
There's never one around when you need to pull a wounded man out of the battlefield and then carry him to a field hospital.
Also, they can be a bitch to get up a a stairway.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Soldiers were doing that in WWI without the need for robot-suits.
Not to mention that the future of killing is drones.
Giving troops their own robot-suits makes each soldier that much more expensive when the drone takes them out.
If your mission plan requires the troops to carry 200lbs of equipment themselves then whomever wrote that plan needs to be shot.
That's what we have vehicles for.
But I need Google to know what a pound is: 200 pounds = 90.718474 kilograms
Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
We Europeans actually get out of our recliners and out into the wild now and then!
This is blinging
These are being mass produced in Japan for health care and other markets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy7ipDAyXtI
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html
Why are those things necessary?
If you look at "kill ratios", the US soldier (moreso the US Marine) is quite effective as it stands.
A HUD with targeting/fire control wouldn't prove entirely useful until Friend/Foe systems are worked out to the point of being infallible.
You're not going to get any vertical launch munitions with a mere 200lb payload, and they wouldn't be terribly effective without substantial control systems. (For instance, SAW alone is going to weigh in at 20lb or so. Ammo for that is going to be another 50lb-100lb. Add in gyros for stabilizing and aiming/etc. controls, and you're looking at the full support weight of the system. It's never good to design to the system's maximum capabilities.)
And, guess what? All that would rely on vertical support systems, and communication with them. If you're sending data to request data, the enemy can detect your location. The ability to detect your enemy's location is a big part of being able to effectively kill them.
What this will do is making existing soldiers more capable on their own. They will have motorized assistance to carry their 80lb rucks, so they will be able to do everything they do today - faster, more agilely, and for a longer period of time - without being exhausted in combat.
For this thing to be effective in combat, what they need to do now is figure out a means to make it self-carrying (say, a 'low power' mode that would only support its own weight + a little, relying on the soldier to do the rest, combined with solar trickle charging), and improve its ability to hold things independently/not use those stupid pads. This way it'd improve effectiveness without actually interfering when not directly in use. (Soldiers spend a lot more time just standing around and walking than they do fighting. Something that just adds weight during this period of time will be quickly discarded/taken off, even if it's effective at other times.)
Short term, the linked Raytheon XOS2 looks like it'd be more useful, short-medium term. Think: the skid loaders in Aliens. You'd be able to (as a group of 3-5 men, say) quickly and easily move 500lb to 1/2-ton crates on and off vehicles and the like. 30 cal or 50 cal cans would take a single person, and they'd be able to move them quickly.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They don't get that until at least MK IV haven't you read Halo: Fall of Reach.
Make Terminator Power Armor, NAOW!
Another maturing technology in desperate need of new, denser energy storage device. The pressure is building - I wonder how many years before we finally see the really new new battery. Three? Five? Ten? Something that makes the concept of changing batteries in consumer devices obsolete, as they age faster than the battery is depleted...
I, for one, welcome this robotic oversuit.
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
or more positively, they'll be able to carry from food aid / supplies in disaster areas.
Just ignore for a second the fact that if an enemy is unable to kill your soldiers, they will give up. Ignore the fact that killing all enemy combatants quicker and more effectively (fewer deaths) that the conflict will end sooner. (Any context in which these realities do not hold acknowledges an existential ideological conflict.)
As a child poster to you said: they'll be generally more effective at humanitarian aide as well.
Believe it or not, humanitarian efforts - providing food, support, etc. - have long been the bulk of US military operations. We've seemingly stopped doing that recently, but that may have been due to the greedy, hateful "give us more, and fuck off" mentality of the recipients.
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Anyone notice how in the pics in TFA the guy is wearing his helmet cover backwards? Who did they hire to model this thing?
Troll Interesting Flamebait ... none
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
A HUD with targeting/fire control wouldn't prove entirely useful until Friend/Foe systems are worked out to the point of being infallible.
That's not entirely true. "No kill zones", to friendly troop movements, topology overlays, so no and so on, all greatly enhance survivability. You forget we do a lot by radar guidance and remote target acquisition. Targeting by UAV is becoming more prevalent. All of which can be of value to someone on the ground. Especially if they are close to the target area.
Don't worry, you'll see all that being "tested" in the next war they buy.
You mean in Iran or America?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
"Don't worry, you'll see all that being "tested" in the next war they buy."
I don't think it will be the next one but the next after that.
Did you notice they are photographs, not video there?
Why do you think that's the case? Maybe because it looks good enough while standing still but once you see it moving you understand there's no way the military would use it in real combat?
I don't think most people working on projects like this are thinking about the cost per kill, so much as cost to keep a soldier alive for a year in Afghanistan. If you'll notice, weapons systems haven't changed in any major way during this war, but body armor has been in continuous transition since it began. I know guys who owe their lives to simple things like the gunner restraint (when an IED goes off, it keeps them from flying like a ragdoll out the top of the vehicle). The enemy that got away doesn't matter 1% as much as the soldier who died because nobody was willing to spend a few bucks to keep his equipment up date.
The link is goatse.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Who would carry 200 lbs (about 80 kilos) and jog at 10mph, (16km/hr). The knees and lungs would surely not endure any more that 30 seconds of that before fatigue or knee damage occurs.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
First, the US hasn't fought a single legitimate war in the last 65 years. Give me one good reason to fight the vietnam war.
Because the communist regimes throughout the world were growing and oppressing millions of people, and stopping said encroachment was the morally superior thing to do?
The fact that it was a poorly fought war, with shitloads of bureaucratic nonsense and incompetent commanders doesn't change this fact. The war was winnable had we fought differently - diligently, and not as a military experiment.
Same shit for every other war the US has fought. The same is actually true for WWII, you were dying to get into that war, and tried hard until you found a good excuse. Same thing in WWI, you actually sent the Lusitania knowing that it would get destroyed in order to get into the fucking war.
So maybe we should have let the Germans walk all over Europe, cleansing all the Jews in the process. "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" and all that. And I'm sure France (and the majority of Europe) wouldn't have fought to the last man during WWI, or anything, had the US not stepped in with substantial aide.
I suppose you think the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor never happened, and it was actually US ships attacking?
What you don't seem to realize is that the US was mostly opposed to joining the World Wars. Western Europe would have been destroyed utterly had we not interceded.
Humanitarian efforts? Fuck of, you fucking hypocrite.
Please see: pretty much any hurricane or tsunami worldwide, the rebuilding of Japan and Germany after WWII, and the food surpluses given to famine-stricken places for the past 40+ years. The US has done more than any force (except for the British Empire) in the past several centuries to keep the world regionally stable and people world-over fed and un-oppressed.
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Because the communist regimes throughout the world were growing and oppressing millions of people, and stopping said encroachment was the morally superior thing to do?
Bullshit. Communism isn't evil or oppressive, at least no more than capitalism. The only country in the world that says "Communism is evil" as a motto is the US. Sure, there are particular cases like Stalin, but that has nothing to do with Communism itself. Besides communism isn't so different from what you guys have: In communism, the state controls money, wealth and production. In corporate USA, corporations take the role of the state and control money, wealth and production.
So maybe we should have let the Germans walk all over Europe, cleansing all the Jews in the process. "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" and all that. And I'm sure France (and the majority of Europe) wouldn't have fought to the last man during WWI, or anything, had the US not stepped in with substantial aide.
Guess what? It wasn't the US that stopped the Nazis. It was the Russians. Read some history, and you'll understand that simple fact.
Regarding Perl Harbor, the USA was providing financial aid and weaponry to Japan's enemies (China and the UK). Roosevelt insulted Japan everytime he got some camera time (AKA all the fucking time). There are many sources that say that the US knew about the attack, and allowed it to happen to be able to enter the war.
Maybe you will believe someone in the forces? Here you go:
One perspective is given by Vice Admiral Frank E. Beatty, who at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack was an aide to the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and was very close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inner circle, with perspicuous remarks as:
"Prior to December 7, it was evident even to me... that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believed that it was the desire of President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt the Allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us failed; the conditions we imposed upon Japan — to get out of China, for example — were so severe that we knew that nation could not accept them. We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react toward the United States. All her preparations in a military way — and we knew their over-all import — pointed that way."
Now, about this:
The US has done more than any force (except for the British Empire) in the past several centuries to keep the world regionally stable and people world-over fed and un-oppressed.
You are delusional. Let me guess, you also believe that god is real, your government is honest, and santa loves you and brings you toys?
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Communism isn't evil or oppressive, at least no more than capitalism.
There are two main problems with communism - one is that the centralisation of decision making (and hence creativity) is unsuitable for managing a large country (note both china and Russia abandoned much of these ideas and introduced, albeit limited, free market reforms). Second is that it creates large concentrations of power that inevitably revert to authoritarian control - its basically part of human nature (you will see this in decision making literature). Given the above its not surprising that the system has failed to demonstrate a working compatibility with democracy - and while capitalism is not without flaws - these have been largely mitigated in the western world.
Regarding Perl Harbor, the USA was providing financial aid and weaponry to Japan's enemies (China and the UK). Roosevelt insulted Japan everytime he got some camera time (AKA all the fucking time). There are many sources that say that the US knew about the attack, and allowed it to happen to be able to enter the war.
These are all true (expect perhaps about knowing about the attack - while they knew an attack was likely they did not know the time and place) but are irrelevant. The US did provide some token support to the Chinese (the UK was not at war with Japan at the time and declared war at the same time at the US) - however the main thing that the US did was embargo a critical ingredient to their war of ruthless expansion - oil - something perfectly legitimate to do given how Japan was behaving at the time (the rape of nanjing for instance). If you think this makes an attack legitimate then I would disagree - if they wanted to they could have given up all their gains in their wars in return for resumed oil imports. The they chose to attack says it all.
The US has done more than any force (except for the British Empire) in the past several centuries to keep the world regionally stable and people world-over fed and un-oppressed
If you disagree - name the country that has done more? While the US has done some bad things it has also done very good things - it stood up to the USSR, kosovo, somalia etc - the world would be a much poorer place if it has not existed.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
by the way im Enlisted in the Navy
You obviously didn't join for the marvellous educational opportunities like learning how to spell and use capital letters correctly.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Because the communist regimes throughout the world were growing and oppressing millions of people, and stopping said encroachment was the morally superior thing to do?
Or, alternatively, countries such as Vietnam were shrugging off their imperialist colonised status and achieving self-determination, which fucked with the West's desire to control them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
while capitalism is not without flaws - these have been largely mitigated in the western world.
Yes, by adopting a large number of what would once have been called socialist/communist measures. For example, legislating against child labour, providing pensions and health care, allowing workers to strike, state enforcement of health and safety laws and anti-racist/sexist employment practices, provision of universal access to education independent of wealth and the concept of welfare in times of unemployment.
The problem is, that a lot of these benefits now want to be watered down or abolished by pro-free market fanatics. The closer you get to a return to unfettered capitalism, the more likely you are to produce the conditions that caused Marx to write Das Kapital and thus make revolutionary discontent more likely.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
>Why are those things necessary
These are 2fold....first off this is always the way, military gets it first then tests it, then 5 years later, it is available to the public. Once available to the public many seniors or even MS patients will be better off.
Secondly, they need this to put it through its learning curve, this is always like a beta version, many years into it, we will see spin offs, better armor, better air conditioning, etc...
Sort of like Iron man, the first one was not the best, but the series of ones after it, became pretty cool, each for a specific job, no?
You've created a hydraulic version of an obese person. Our tax dollars at work people! ~:-)B