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

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

[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

[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:awesome

[The Grim Reefer2]

Can you imagine jerking it with that thing.

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