Sounds like the 'power armor' in Heinlein's "Star****p Troopers".
Now all we gotta do is equip the squad leaders with nukes.
(AP) -- Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and
skis when time allows.
But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses
200 pounds -- that is, until he steps into an "exoskeleton" of
aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as
many as 20 times.
With the outfit's claw-like metal hand extensions, he gripped a weight
set's bar at a recent demonstration and knocked off hundreds of
repetitions.
Once, he did 500.
"Everyone gets bored much more quickly than I get tired," Jameson
said.
Jameson -- who works for robotics firm Sarcos Inc. in Salt Lake City,
which is under contract with the U.S. Army -- is helping *****s the
150-pound suit's viability for the soldiers of tomorrow.
The suit works by sensing every movement the wearer makes and almost
instantly amplifying it.
The Army believes soldiers may someday wear the suits in combat, but
it's focusing for now on applications such as loading cargo or
repairing heavy equipment. Sarcos is developing the technology under a
two-year contract worth up to $10 million, and the Army plans initial
field tests next year.
Before the technology can become practical, the developers must
overcome cost barriers and extend the suit's battery life. Jameson was
tethered to power cords during his demonstration because the current
battery lasts just 30 minutes.
But the technology already offers evidence that robotics can amplify
human muscle power in reality -- not just in the realm of comic books
and movies like the recently debuted "Iron Man," about a wealthy
weapons designer who builds a high-tech suit to battle bad guys.
"Everybody likes the idea of being a superhero, and this is all about
expanding the capabilities of a human," said Stephen Jacobsen, chief
designer of the Sarcos suit.
The Army's exoskeleton research dates to 1995, but has yet to yield
practical suits. Sarcos' technology sufficiently impressed Raytheon
Co., however, that the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense contractor
bought Sarcos' robotics business last November. Sarcos also has
developed robotic dinosaurs for a Universal Studios' "Jurassic Park"
theme park ride.
Jack Obusek, a former colonel now with the Army's Soldier Research
Development and Engineering Center in the Boston suburb of Natick,
foresees robot-suited soldiers unloading heavy ammunition boxes from
helicopters, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear over rough terrain or
even relying on the suit's strength-enhancing capabilities to make
repairs to tanks that break down in inconvenient locations.
Sarcos' Jacobsen envisions factory workers someday using the
technology to perform manual labor more easily, and firefighters more
quickly carrying heavy gear up stairwells of burning buildings.
Disabled people also may find uses for the technology, he said.
"We see the value being realized when these suits can be built in
great numbers for both military and commercial uses, and they start
coming down in cost to within the range of the price of a small car,"
said Jacobsen.
He declined to estimate how much the suit might cost in mass
production.
But cost isn't the only obstacle. For example, developers eventually
hope to lengthen the suit's backpack battery's life and tinker with
the suit's design to use less energy. Meanwhile, the suit can draw
power from a generator, a tank or helicopter. And there are gas
engines that, while noisy, small enough to fit into the suit's
backpack.
"The power issue is probably the No. 1 challenge standing in the way
of getting this thing in the field," Obusek said.
But he said Sarcos appears to have overcome the key challenge of
pairing super-fast microprocessors with sensors that detect movements
by the body's joints and transmit data about them to the suit's
internal computer.
Much as the brain sends signals to tendons to get muscles to move, the
computer sends instructions to hydraulic valves. The valves mimic
tendons by driving the suit's mechanical limbs, replicating and
amplifying the wearer's movements almost instantly.
"With all the previous attempts at this technology, there has been a
slight lag time between the intent of the human, and the actual
movement of the machine," Obusek said.
In the demonstration, the bulky suit slowed Jameson a bit, but he
could move almost normally.
When a soccer ball was thrown at him, he bounced it back off his
helmeted head. He repeatedly struck a punching bag and, slowly but
surely, he climbed stairs in the suit's clunky aluminum boots, which
made him look like a Frankenstein monster.
"It feels less agile than it is," Jameson said. "Because of the way
the control laws work, it's ever so slightly slower than I am. And
because we are so in tune with our bodies' responses, this tiny delay
initially made me tense."
Now, he's used to it.
"I can regain my balance naturally after stumbling -- something I
discovered completely by accident."
Learning was easy, he said.
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