The Real Iron Man Research

[Mowgli]

Hey there! I dion't know if this has already been posted, but I just saw it for the first time. Looks pretty cool so I thought I would share. Enjoy!

http://www.communistrobot.com/viewblog.php?id=591

[YoungHeros]

Pretty cool!! :thumbup:

[BWPS]

Uhh...what? How much strength does it take to pull a trigger? Wouldn't it be wiser to make these guys some body armor? This is win-more when we need die-less. Also, it's ugly.

[detourne_me]

Uhh...what? How much strength does it take to pull a trigger? Wouldn't it be wiser to make these guys some body armor? This is win-more when we need die-less. Also, it's ugly.

body armor is the long term goal, but a normal human wouldn't be able to support all of the weight and perform well.  This is the first step, the skeleton and muscles. next will be the circulation and respiration systems (life support), then the armor.  the most important factor (the brain) is already implemented really with wireless communications, CCTV cameras, heat-signature mapping, etc.

this model looks a lot more functional and flexible than previous exoskeletons i've seen.  I'm wondering though,  they mention it will be able to become a humanoid android when the soldier isn't wearing it.  does that mean that the rig could be remotely piloted while a human is strapped in too?

[Mowgli]

Uhh...what? How much strength does it take to pull a trigger? Wouldn't it be wiser to make these guys some body armor? This is win-more when we need die-less. Also, it's ugly.

Did you watch the video? It showed practical applications galore. Preforming regular activities without tiring, including loading a missile singlehandedly or loading 30-70 pound canisters faster than multiple men could keep up with. You might be surprised to find that soldiers do more than just pull triggers. And if you did watch the whole thing, you saw the designs for the body armor that would accompany the exoskeleton. This is win-more, work-more and die-less all in one.

As for ugly, I suspect most preliminary, unfinished research looks raw like this.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Besides, it doesn't matter how ugly it is, if it wins wars, no one will care what it looks like.

[BentonGrey]

Besides, it doesn't matter how ugly it is, if it wins wars, no one will care what it looks like.

Precisely.  This is an amazing advancement.  Since the end of the Middle Ages, firepower has completely outstripped armor.  We CAN armor a soldier to the point where he's protected from modern weapons, but he'd be so loaded down he wouldn't be able to move.  This takes the weight factor out.  This is really exciting, sci-fi tech stuff here.  We're talking powered suits of armor eventually, enabling our boys to wade through small arms fire, IMDs, and who knows what else.  Just think what that would mean.

[BWPS]

Uhh...what? How much strength does it take to pull a trigger? Wouldn't it be wiser to make these guys some body armor? This is win-more when we need die-less. Also, it's ugly.

Did you watch the video? It showed practical applications galore. Preforming regular activities without tiring, including loading a missile singlehandedly or loading 30-70 pound canisters faster than multiple men could keep up with. You might be surprised to find that soldiers do more than just pull triggers. And if you did watch the whole thing, you saw the designs for the body armor that would accompany the exoskeleton. This is win-more, work-more and die-less all in one.

As for ugly, I suspect most preliminary, unfinished research looks raw like this.

No, I didn't watch the whole thing. Looking at the end now, the body armor does look pretty awesome. This is very cool to see. But for the military I still don't see this as being cost effective or necessary. If it does the work of 3 soldiers, it looks like it would be cheaper to just have 3 soldiers do it. Also, I doubt they have any intention of buying one of these per soldier to protect everyone when they wouldn't even spring for the better regular body armor. Maybe have a few to go in certain military and police situations to reduce people dying. But mass production would probably cost more than they can afford.
Of course, I don't know much about expense or anything else and I still haven't watched the whole video.

[BentonGrey]

Well, BWPS, you're right, it won't be cost effective.  At least, it won't at first.  You see, that's the key, after they develop the technology, it'll take time to become more affordable, but once it HAS been developed, that is at least a possibility.  With this kind of tech, you could make the most of it by, say, having a squad of power-armored infantry doing a job that normally would take a much larger force.  Since they would be all but invulnerable to small arms, a small unit of those troops could engage and defeat a company of regular troops or insurgents.  Heck, a force of these guys on the ground in a situation like Iraq would be incredibly effective, since almost non of the weapons available to the terrorists could touch them.  It's not something we're likely to see in a year, or even ten years, but it COULD happen.

[stumpy]

I think this is pretty cool. There are limits to the technology (e.g. a heavy unit cannot be made to feel totally dynamically massless, etc.), but it can be a great assistance to people. The ideas and basic devices have been around for a long time. Now advances in design and so on with robot actuators, sensors, cobots, etc. have really gotten this near the point where it can leave the lab and see use in the field.

I have no doubt the technology will be expensive to start out. But, technology gets cheaper as time goes on and mass production will also lower the costs, not raise them. It's the prototypes that are expensive. The costs come down once designs are finalized and efficiencies of scale can be brought into the picture.

BTW, I'm not saying anything governments buy will ever be inexpensive, just that new technology is most expensive at its introduction. The price of this technology won't really drop until non-government applications are more widespread.

[detourne_me]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynL8BCXih8U&feature=related

heres a cool Japanese one,  it doesn't get really into the capabilities until the 3 minute mark though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKYabUPOoBg&feature=related

This vid shows the same suit,  but with a lot more practical applications,  including its maneuverability, and how it could help disabled people.

[BlueBard]

Hmph.  I'm imagining the scary part... well-financed terrorists with powered armor.  The cops wouldn't be able to touch them with conventional firearms and governments wouldn't have the armor in position for counter-offense for the most part.

Of course, focused EM would likely fry one of these in an eye-blink, so the news wouldn't be all bad.  Shielding the armor from EM would increase the weight and complicate the design.

Battery technology being what it is, I'd imagine runtime to be relatively short in any case.  But I suppose a few hours would be all that was needed.

[herodad1]

i read an article in popular mechanics about the different stages the military looked at concerning their soldiers.the first step was physically enhanced soldiers,2nd was exo-suits, and third was fully automated combat robots.(T-800?)also did anyone catch the TLC special a year back called the science behind superheroes?when they compared science to the hulk  they brought up the whole steroid thing but a company has developed a serum they wont release to the military or private use that could give humans almost superhuman strength.they gave it to a rat,it was pumped up with muscle(looked like the bulldog on bugs bunny) and could run on a treadmill all day.given to a human,they said he could possibly put on 400 pounds of muscle.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I find it unlikely that a terrorist would even be able to get his hands on this, or find any use for it.  Terrorists work by stealth using things that aren't military hardware, and therefore won't easily arouse suspicious, to make there attacks.  A suit like this would be far too easily noticed, and would lack the sheer, immediate destructive power that terrorists are after.

[BlueBard]

Cat, I mention terrorists because I can easily imagine a bunch rolling up in a van and piling out in power armor to take an embassy.  Guys in power armor might get a whole lot farther in and do a whole lot more damage.  True it isn't terribly likely.  But as a remote possibility, sure.  Insurgents and rebels would probably get even more use out of them, but I don't consider them a far step away from terrorists in many cases.

A 'super-serum' isn't terribly likely either.  There are physical limits to human strength that simply cannot be bypassed without miraculous intervention.  Even approaching those limits I believe you would wind up doing said human being irrevocable physiological damage.  I'm not sure what 400 lbs of muscle would do to a person, but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be pretty and that they wouldn't remain functional for very long if at all.  Packing muscle onto a rat is different... different scale, different musculoskeletal structure, etc.  I don't claim to understand all of the physics behind it, but anything much beyond Olympic caliber strength is simply not going to happen.

[herodad1]

the serum was for muscular deterioration type diseases.the rat they injected was probably healthy.true...it probably wouldnt live long.

[zuludelta]

Neat video, I can imagine all sorts of non-combat applications (construction, healthcare, shipping & warehousing, etc.), but I have my doubts as to whether it has any practical value (in relation to cost of development) in today's battlefield.

As impressive as it looks like mobility-wise, I'd like to see actual power multiplication ratios, weight numbers, etc. I think the current trend in modern warfare is towards units using simpler, no-nonsense small arms and unconventional warfare and small-unit tactics. The thing to keep in mind is that having that exoskeleton also means hiring and training maintenance crews, such that the overall outlay isn't just the raw materials and the construction cost of the exoskeleton.

Musing about all this puts me in mind of one of the small unit tactics lectures I attended back in the day (yikes! out of character for a long-haired pacifist type such as myself, but I actually had to take two military science courses in university in the Philippines back when it was still required by law), the lecturer, a retired Scout Ranger (roughly the equivalent of a US Army Green Beret or US Navy SEAL), was talking about how, for all the technology invested in the modern $90 million Abrams tank, it could still be taken down by a a two-man crew armed with a nothing but a $1000 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and how NATO and Western firearms manufacturers had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research to develop the modern assault rifle to counter the AK-47 (going from the M-14, to the M-16, to the M-16A2, to the M-16A4, and finally to the bug-ridden M4) when it would have been cheaper to just copy and improve upon the more reliable and efficient AK-47 design... although their "official" rifle was the M-16, his own unit actually preferred using captured AK-47s because they were less likely to foul in combat conditions.

Anyways, his point was that "horizontal" warfare technology development is more cost-efficient these days (by which he meant appropriating existing, proven, technology and adapting it for military use), and that highly-touted, but unproven, technological breakthroughs, more often than not, are pushed forward as much by special interest groups and corporate sponsors as much as they are by practical battlefield considerations.