[headdie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10703219

Basically Lockheed Martin is preparing to put its prototype powered exo-skeleton for 8 weeks of lab testing which

After the lab tests, the HULC is likely to go through more field tests in 'real-life' military scenarios during 2011.

[iamzack]

armor*

[StarSlayer]

armor*

Britain does it different


Anyway looks like it might be useful for hauling equipment and ammo up some hillside, but its still quite a ways away from being a combat frame.

[Angelus]

armor*

Britain does it different


Anyway looks like it might be useful for hauling equipment and ammo up some hillside, but its still quite a ways away from being a combat frame.

Was thinking the same as i read:

...which can fit different body sizes, also allow for jumps, squats, crawling and slow-speed running.

Well, i guess develpement on these just started.
Apart from military usage, it might be useful in other areas, e.g. removing rubble after a earthquake to look for survivors in areas which are too instable for heavy equipement and/ or not practical, in commercial areas where people have to lift heavy cargo and such, things like that.


No Crysis style Nanosuits yet.  

[headdie]

its one of those techs which will have huge benefits in all aspects of human activity even at mundane levels like a nurse better able to move a patient between a bed and a wheel chair.

[StarSlayer]

Power Armor Sports! 

[SpardaSon21]

Yes, Power Armor Sports.  Can we get no-holds-barred fights like the one in Iron Man 2 where the contestants try to knock each other out with objects that would kill a human with a single blow?

And yes, armor needs to be spelled properly in the title since we are talking about a piece of American equipment made by an American company.  If a British company was working on this they could spell "armor" however they like and I wouldn't care.

[headdie]

sorry, American company or not I'm still British and I will communicate I'm my home language

[Flipside]

Biggest problem with power-armour is the soft, squishy human inside it. I think we aren't going to see power-armour in a combat situation until we make steps in genetics more than engineering, I suspect the only way to get a 'working' version of that sort of thing is to have almost a cyborg, a machine that is powered by genetically created muscles and sinew controlled by the brain of the person sitting inside it (or in a booth a few miles away), and even then, it's a question of power over torque.

Thing is about Biology is that it isn't as scaleable as people think, it's like the old legends of the Dragon, simply making a big lizard and putting wings on it won't work, so over the years there have been increased mind-doodling over things like hollow bones and electric 'thimbles' in the dragons mouth to ignite Hydrogen. The Human body is the same, a larger body means larger bones, larger bones means more muscle density, more muscle density means more weight... etc, and if you want to armour to react with human-type reflexes, the torque created by turning etc in a larger frame increases exponentially with size iirc.

That said, it's pretty astounding stuff, but in truth, there are probably better, if less cool-looking, ways of approaching a live battlefield

[StarSlayer]

See this would be a perfect example of when to use power armo(u)r.  To decide with mechanically augmented fisticuffs which spelling should be used!


In all seriousness though, I'm willing to bet the utility side is probably going to gain traction quite a bit faster then mounting M-249s on it will.

@ Flipside, to be honest, I don't think it needs to be quite as complex as all that.  Space Marine esq power armor is cool and all but a more practical version of that exoskeleton really could be battlefield applicable squishy meat bags or not.  The major thing with the exoskeleton would be for it to not hinder the trooper's movement and for the power source to allow for practical combat power for a good duration.  It doesn't need to make them a walking M1A2, just increasing their carry capacity for ammo and gear would be a big plus.  Right now a modern infantry man is carrying roughly 80 + pounds of body armor, ammo, water and other gear.  Your generally only good for maybe one decent sprint carrying all that ****.  If an exoskeleton could double their carry capacity and allow them to run and take cover without having to actually bear any of that weight?  That'd be worthwhile technology.

[Flipside]

I expect so, I think Power Armour will end up being far more Aliens than Avatar

[SpardaSon21]

Honestly though, this thing could work, you just need to keep the size down as much as possible to minimize torque.  And we don't need artificial muscles considering BattleTech-style myomer has already been invented.  I read about a more prototype version of power armor (the Raytheon armor design) in an issue of Popular Mechanics (right after Iron Man I had been released), and they've got a myomer-like material that contracts when electric current is applied, and apparently does it 200x as strong as human muscle.

Of course, my eventual hopes for power armor is what they have in Starship Troopers: The Book.

[Flipside]

Even with stuff like that, it's not just a question of expansion and contraction, it's also a question of shock absorbtion, impact damage reduction, and reaction time. People don't realise how quickly and naturally their bodies react to unknown situations, even the act of standing upright all the time is a constant balancing act for the human brain, and muscles are kind of 'fluidic' in nature, they don't simply expand and contract, the level of control a human subconciously has over them is quite literally mind-boggling, Something as simple as picking up an object is a complex, and slow task even for the most advanced machine, change that object to a fragile object like an egg and it gets worse. Firing an arm mounted gun involves recoil that, in a human combatant, is absorbed and compensated for, once again, this wouldn't be the case in powered suits.

Any kind of physical man-machine interface is going to cause delays in reaction time, add to that the weight of the structure, the armour requirements, and therefore the power requirements, and the little problems that are going to crop up, and you'll probably find the best weapon to have on the ground in a combat situation is grunts with guns, who can cope with far more unexpected situations and terrains, and can react to situations instantly.

Edit: In summary, I doubt there is any situation in which a power-armour system could provide more effective support than a hover, tracked or wheeled vehicle, and they will probably have the same operational terrain limits, the difference is, a hover or wheeled unit is (a)faster and (b)cheaper.

[headdie]

In all seriousness though, I'm willing to bet the utility side is probably going to gain traction quite a bit faster then mounting M-249s on it will.

I remember watching  a James May program showing a civilian system being developed in Japan for nursing so I know some civilian companies are playing with the idea though it looked a lot bulkier than the example shown in the article but again the program was from a few years ago

but yes civilian applications will take significantly less development first thing that springs to mind is that for the power armour you need to figure out how to construct the armour without being to restrictive to the soldiers movement, second is how to prevent shut down from electronic weapons.

[Nuke]

its technically not armor, just a strength augmentation doohickey.

[headdie]

true but how long is it going to be between getting thing battle viable and someone starts strapping Kevlar  and steel/titanium plates to it

[SpardaSon21]

Flipside, a human always knows where his limbs are and what they are doing, so why would that be different if he was wearing power armor?  With proper training I'm sure a human could adjust to the enhanced strength, and yes, even pick up an egg (very, very carefully of course).  The most important part is making sure the operator knows what forces are being transmitted to him, so the cerebellum can subconsciously compensate.

[NGTM-1R]

true but how long is it going to be between getting thing battle viable and someone starts strapping Kevlar  and steel/titanium plates to it

The logical application is EOD, and the logical reason to add armor is to make it fragmention proof. After that it'll probably go to combat engineering, then eventually line infantry.

[Titan]

They were playing ads for this on the screens at the FIRST internationals this year. Everymorning we'd walk in early, and a 5 minute movie about this would be one of the things in the cycle.

[castor]

Looks like a death trap to me.