Those of us who are into science fiction (readers of Heinlein, e.g.) have known about this idea of "powered exoskeletons" for a while. If you've seen the Aliens movies, you know what I mean - that walking forklift, right?
If you're not familiar with the concept, here's what it is: basically, the wearer straps machinery onto his body that responds to movements by applying its power to strengthening them. If you have power steering in your car, or power brakes, that's a simplified version of what I mean.
Well, it turns out that there are projects to turn the maniacal dreams of super-soldiers into... well, not quite reality, because they don't look like they'd make good weapons, but they're interesting. More below.
There's a suit made by Sarcos, Inc., which is pretty goofy-looking, and as yet does not have a practical power-source, that shows off the real promise of this kind of technology. It's easy to step into or out of, and when it's activated, it allows the wearer to do things like press a 200lb weight 500 times without really sweating (although he probably would get bored). A video on YouTube shows the wearer hefting 35lb ammo boxes from one pallet to another much faster than unaugmented technicians or reporters can move them back.
A side wow factor in that video: someone claims that future models of the exoskeleton will be fully autonomous - without a wearer, it's a humanoid robot, and with a wearer, it's a superhero, he says. Make of that what you will, of course.
Now, that's a pretty martial type of application. Maybe there's some other way to use it that doesn't involve destroying things? Well, yes and then again, no.
One example is the LIFESUIT, developed to aid movement of people with spinal injuries. It was inspired by someone reading Starship Troopers, and as I understand it, it's got either hydraulic or compressed gas pistons to drive it. Another lovely one is the Hybrid Assistive Limb, which the designer says magnifies the wearer's strength by ten times. It is much more of a suit than LIFESUIT, though; where one simply straps LIFESUIT on, HAL is controlled through a jumpsuit that contains electromyography electrodes. Instead of being controlled by movements, HAL responds to the electrical charges generated by motor neurons and active muscles. More science-fictiony, and of course more complex and hard to get used to. (Wait until Model 9000 comes out - then we're in trouble.) This one will supposedly allow people with wasted muscles but intact motor neurons to get around, or allow healthy people to move around faster and stronger - for example, to assist those who can't move on their own. So we might be talking about a way of allowing nursing staff to handle patients who can't move on their own, with less risk of causing injury either to the nurse or the patient by inadequate strength. Let's just assume that everyone uses proper lifting technique, too, since the suit probably wouldn't compensate for that.
And lastly, and most entertaining, a Japanese engineering team created something called Enryu. It's not strictly an exoskeleton - it's more like a Bobcat with arms attached to it - but it's similar enough, and the goofiness of it certainly qualifies it for inclusion in this blog series. Fundamentally, it's a digging tool meant for use in disaster areas. It has tracks to get it across rubble, and the arms are for picking up concrete slabs and the like and setting them aside, so anyone underneath can climb or be pulled out, or so the next ton of concrete can be lifted away. You could use it on the scene of a car accident, too. Because its claws are a lot like a Hurst rescue tool (Jaws of Life(tm), fyi), and because they're controlled rather finely from the cab, it would probably be fairly easy to pull away damaged sections of a car's chassis to allow a passenger to get out.
And really, the thing looks awesome.
Look at it, just hefting a car like a toy.
Thought for the day: Today, machines serve us and we serve them. Tomorrow, who knows? We may become the machine, and the machine may become us.
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Previous MSPW diaries can be found as follows (and don't read them if you're trying to preserve your unwarped mind):
MSPW 9: Noise-Marines, forward!
MSPW 8: Rapid prototyping brings engineering to the masses
MSPW 7: Putting Mentos and Diet Coke to good use
MSPW 6: Why Bjorn the Fel-Handed is probably unhappy
MSPW 5: Combining the latest concepts in farming and power generation
MSPW 4: Project Orcon, or why pigeons make good pilots
MSPW 3: Can cuttlefish drive?
MSPW 2: The hafnium bomb
MSPW 1: Building a better skunk