Iron Man-like Exoskeleton Nears Production

fangmcgee writes "By now, with films like Iron Man, its sequel, and Avatar, Hollywood has made us thoroughly familiar with the idea of the robotic exoskeleton. Less well known, however, is that researchers are actually building robotic exoskeletons like the ones envisioned by Hollywood and the comic book visionaries from whom Hollywood pilfers its most lucrative ideas. Among the developers of real-life Iron Man suits (of which there are many, the world over) is a group called Raytheon Sarcos. And as IEEE Spectrum reports in this month's issue, its impressive second-generation exoskeleton robotics suit, dubbed the XOS 2, is nearing production."

Comments

Drinks are on me.

[magusxxx]

Jack Daniels not included.

Not Skynet enough

[Toe, The]

Seems like a major purpose of these is to have soldiers wear an exoskeleton to make them more formidable both offensively and defensively.

But can't you just skip the middleman (literally) and just have good ol' fashion killbots?

I mean, what's the point of having actual people involved in a process so minor as, well, killing people?

Re:Not Skynet enough

[Brandano]

Well, you wouldn't want to risk having the robots getting all ethical on you all of a sudden. Humans are ethically more malleable. Also, once your adversary reaches the same technological level the end result is having robots fight other robots. I think that sort of thing makes you go blind or something.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[Nidi62]

Seems like a major purpose of these is to have soldiers wear an exoskeleton to make them more formidable both offensively and defensively.

Actually, the main idea right now is for rear echelon troops or soldiers stationed in FOBs to move around materiel/supplies/other heavy stuff while in base, to avoid injuries. Eventually, they'd like to get the weight/power supply small enough to allow troops to wear assistive devices while on patrol. A 2-3 day patrol in mountains almost 2 miles above sea level is bad enough. It's a lot worse when you have to hump 100+lbs of gear at that altitude also.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[Toe, The]

Also, once your adversary reaches the same technological level the end result is having robots fight other robots.

Well, it's all very clean and neat then:

1. Two armies of robots fight it out in a huge but very confined conflagration.

2. Eventually, one side defeats the other and eradicates all their robots.

3. Whatever victorious robots remain then, of course, go ahead and exterminate the entire enemy civilian population.

See how neat and clean that is? Warfare will be much more decisive and the following peace will certainly be much longer-lasting.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[CommieLib]

I don't think that's going to be the (direct) purpose of these...not for moral or ethical considerations, but a simple engineering one - there's no way the power is going to last long enough for a patrol.

These would be absolutely terrific for combat loading, though, and don't underestimate how important that is. Imagine an aircraft comes in for resupply, a cohort of engineers in these suits...you could reload and refuel MUCH faster. The force efficacy of an asset is a function of that time.

So you optimize the suit to work for maybe forty five minutes, and then have hot swappable batteries.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[ArhcAngel]

I think you are looking for a Star Trek reference like Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon" where the captain meets a civilization that dispenses with the nasty bits of war and plays RISK on a global scale. Of course anybody in the affected quadrant is "humanely" euthanized.

Or perhaps you were looking for a more generic reference of the idea like The Forever War?

Re:Not Skynet enough

[BlackSnake112]

Not a problem if the civilians are prepared.

Needed:
1. Area for robots to go through that is on fire. To heat the robots up. This does not stop them but readies for step 2
2. EMP directed at the robots. Hardened robots still go through.
3. A nice liquid O2 or liquid nitrogen bath. Makes the robots hard and brittle.
4. Wreaking ball. This cracks them up.

Burning the robots should melt some parts of them. That should stop many of them. Short circuited robots do less if anything. Fire and the EMP should be used to 'kill' most of the robots since liquid O2 or liquid nitrogen is harder to come by. If we have robot armies, we should have EMP cannons.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[TheRaven64]

For the same reason drones have not replaced the manned air force. There is often a lot of EM noise on a battefield, and some of it is quite intentional. You therefore need your soldiers - human or robotic - to be autonomous. Real combat isn't like Red Alert. The general is not clicking on individual soldiers and telling them where to walk, he's telling a captain to secure a specific objective, that captain is giving orders to squads, and NCOs are making the realtime tactical decisions. Programming that level of autonomy into a robot is really hard. It needs to be able to understand high-level objectives, like secure an area, protect civilians in another, and so on. For now, at least, it's a lot easier to put a human on the ground. Putting fewer humans on the ground is a good idea though, because people back home complain if they don't come back.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[idontgno]

"A Short History of World War LXXVIII" by Roy Prosterman: Wars among nations are simple deathmatches between unmanned robotic war machines fought on the moon, broadcast world-wide. The combatant whose warbot is the last one standing is the party (nation, coalition, etc) that wins. Outcomes are binding; the treaty empowering this is enforced by a neutral standing army capable of quickly defeating any nation that defies this and charged with personally (and capitally) punishing the leadership of any party that violates the treaty.

An amusing and improbable little short story. I always wondered what would happen if you declared war on the supra-national organization enforcing the treaty.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[blair1q]

Killbot gets shot: replace with another $100-million killbot.

Man in exoskeleton gets shot: replace with another $11k/year man.

Don't think they don't do that kind of math at the Pentagon. It's why it's there.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[ByOhTek]

I'm more concerned with what is keeping them from simply controlling the world outright.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[chronosan]

Unless you won.

Re:Not Skynet enough

[AJH16]

Why not just make it a simulation and have the civilian casualties report to nice, clean incineration chambers? (For those not familiar, this is the plot of an episode of Star Trek.)

We will need this!

[jameskojiro]

We will need this if we want to fight off the super intelligent apes.

Re:the 'closest' thing

[spire3661]

Exactly, what makes Iron Man powerful is the completely fictitious power source in his chest. Until you can deliver power on that scale in that size, you are nowhere near "Iron Man"

Re:awesome

[The Grim Reefer2]

Can you imagine jerking it with that thing.

It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the "off" part.

Nice terminal font...

[Sebastopol]

I like how the opening of the video starts with a flashing TTY-like cursor, and then scans across the screen, 1,200 baud style, but uses ... ....a serif proportional font????

Re:Kind of a crappy demo

[cobrausn]

Yeah, but he will do that for hours without tiring or injuring himself. You won't. That's the real advantage of the suit.

The suit is one thing...

[geogob]

The power supply seems more critical part... as it clearly can't be 'on board' with current technology, having a fixed power (electrical and/or hydraulic) source or a large generator on a truck nearby connected with an umbilical isn't very attractive for many application. Maybe a smaller, mobile (on track or wheels), power source that follows the suit might be interesting for many combat or civilian operations (disaster SAR comes to mind).

Re:Power Supply

[llZENll]

In the video he explains they are now at 50% power usage of xo1, and hope to get to 20% of its usage in order to be able have onboard power, my guess is the thing uses so much power currently its not feasible, and even at 20% power usage of the 1st model its probably only powered via onboard sources for a very short time, less than an hour. Once you get onboard power it will weigh significantly more. Even if you have to use a tether it may be useful when loading a lot of very heavy individual things that require dexterity, but it seems like such a specific application that it won't economically viable, hence their target of the military, which is the gold standard for wasting money on niche crap like this.

Re:How many US Taxpayer dollars wasted on this?

[Psmylie]

Exactly, I agree 100%. There are non-military applications to this (warehouse workers, nurses using it for patient care, returning mobility to the injured/ill, and so on). This is the creation of an industry that may see big returns. The fact that the initial use for it is military doesn't mean that it is limited to that functionality forever.

Also, as cool as this looks, what we will have in fifty years will make this look like a bunch of tinker toys powered by springs and rubber bands. But the first generation is needed in order to get to the next.

Re:What robots are you using?

[newcastlejon]

If you tell a human to do something, it might respond or it might do something completely different.

This could happen with a robot, in a literal genie sort of way; computers have a habit of doing what you tell them, not necessarily what you want them to do.