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.

Comments

Re:Not the same as "hard" exo-skeletons.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you improve the endurance of a soldier you *have* improved their weight carrying capacity. But I get what you're saying. They won't be able to lift 300lbs instead of 100lbs and put it on a shelf. However, they might be able to realistically haul say 80lbs of gear 15 miles instead of 50 lbs of gear. Of course that might be how much the batteries weigh to keep the thing running for a day. :)