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DARPA Funds Harvard's Soft Exoskeletal Suit
An anonymous reader writes: The military and private contractors have been toying with exoskeletal combat suits for a while, but Harvard's Wyss Institute has a new take on the concept. Rather than using a hard metal frame and the massively overpowered mechanical servos necessary to move it, the Soft Exosuit is a lightweight mesh of webbing combined with a series of strain sensors and basic microprocessors. "The suit mimics the action of leg muscles and tendons when a person walks, and provides small but carefully timed assistance at the leg joints without restricting the wearer's movement." The suit continually monitors its wearer's body position, movement, and muscular strain, providing small amounts of targeted support. The team has now received $2.9 million in funding from DARPA to refine the suit's design. They say they'll be working on medical applications for the suit as well as military ones.
This is for improving endurance of a soldier, not for improving weight carrying capacity.
http://www.batman-online.com/features/1367699479_brace.jpg
You've given an excellent example of racism, prejudice, and profiling, but probably not the one you intended.
Since this suit doesn't bare the weight/force wouldn't this put much more strain on the muscles/joint/etc vs a hard exoskeleton structure?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
... soon to be given to private enterprise freely, involving you --once again-- as buyer of 'neat' gaming and 3D devices, prosthetics, etc.
Note how many times you spent money.
Capitalism -- schmapitalism! State intervention, say I.
I'm envisioning a business garment that allows hedge fund managers and corporate lawyers to jump over tall buildings.
I think that if they can get muscle wires working well enough, this suit has plenty of potential in either hard or soft form. For soldiers, it could automate the manual marching process and do much for endurance, but has limitations in combat situations if it's called on to do things the human body couldn't do well. It still would need some sort of power generation while in use to keep that system running as long as the human does.
They may be the first to actually begin development of such a exosuit but this kind of application has been imagined in multiple fictional accounts(Spriggan movie & Crisis game series off the top of my head). It'll be interesting to see a full fledged pro-type (most of the stuff in the videos looked like non functional demo gear) but last I heard our artificial muscle tech was pretty pitiful. There was a big claim a while back that a breakthrough had been made using modified sewing thread and fishing line that was actually more efficient/powerful than natural muscle but I don't know if anything came of it. Also their designs seem to put the full brunt of the load on a persons own skeletal/joint system, possibly resulting in injury. While I am sure there is a way to add in some kind of exterior joints/"bones" to take some of the load off the wearer that technology and the muscle technology will take a LOT of advanced research to make a reality.
But nature always finds a way. Teeth become stronger and sharper to pierce the hide directly, armored gullets and crops evolve to subject swallowed prey to slow grinding until the hide is pierced and the juices leak out. Suction arms pin the prey to rock as a horny beak drills through the exoskeleton. Birds lift the prey into the sky and let gravity do the hard work, gathering the yummy bits from the wreckage.
The military should be focusing its research on making soldiers better at hiding, smelling and tasting really bad.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Stop following the herd and having black skin. Be an individual and bleach it. No cops ever shot Michael Jackson.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
MAXIMUM ARMOR could become a common phrase in the special ops community in 20 years while they wear these suits.