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A random news story, it seemed...appropriate.

Make sure you look at the second video, look BEHIND the guy blabbering on.

Is that freaky or what?

Instead of lifting 200 pounds, he can wear 150 pounds of armor, right?

Seems like the birth of power armor to me!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7351314.stm

Here are the links to the videos in the story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7351676.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7351687.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7351687.stm

Here's the text of said story:

US army develops robotic suits

By Rajesh Mirchandani
BBC News, Utah

On the big screen, films like Robocop, Universal Soldier and forthcoming release Iron Man show humanoid robots with superhuman powers. But in Utah they are turning science fiction into reality.

We are at a research facility on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, ringed by beautiful snow-capped mountains. Once they held the Winter Olympics here; now they are testing endurance in other ways.

The aluminium limbs gleam in the brilliant sunshine, as the strange metal skeleton hangs from a safety harness at the outdoor testing site. It seems to be treading water; actually its programme is telling it to keep the hydraulic fluid in its joints moving.

Rex Jameson, a software engineer here at laboratories run by Sarcos, the robotics firm which designed the XOS exoskeleton, steps up and into the suit.

The lightweight aluminium exoskeleton, called XOS, senses Rex's every move and instantly moves with him; it is almost like a shadow or a second skin. It is designed for agility that can match a human's, but with strength and endurance that far outweigh our abilities.

With the exoskeleton on and fully powered up, Rex can easily pull down weight of more than 90 kilos, more than he weighs.

For the army the XOS could mean quicker supply lines, or fewer injuries when soldiers need to lift heavy weights or move objects around repeatedly. Initial models would be used as workhorses, on the logistics side.

Later models, the army hopes, could go into combat, carrying heavier weapons, or even wounded colleagues.

There are still problems to solve, not least how to create a mobile power supply that can last an effective length of time.

But the US military expects to take delivery of these early prototypes next year, and hopefully deploy some refined versions within eight years.

It is a long way off before we see robot soldiers that can fly or fire missiles - like in the movies - but the designers are already imagining future versions more reminiscent of Hollywood.

Hey why do you need to pump money into your flagging economy when you can just spend more on your military!.

being the worlds bully ain't cheap though. politics aside this could do some prity cool stuff exosuits for firemen anyone?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7347613.stm (the opinion of the people holding the west by the balls)

Firemen!? All I can see is an army of guys in Ironman suits blowing up!

They are rightly called Starship Troopers, or cap troopers for short, Rbb.

Yeah, I read Starship Troopers. Anyone who's only seen the movie won't get what you're talking about, though. Just pointing out that some people see this and think that could really help people. Other people (like me!) see super killy bad ass robot men raining destruction on their enemies. Just writing that made me smile.

Aside from military implications (which these are a long way off from) these could prove to be invaluable warehouse tools. No more dodgy forklift operations when you can simply pick a crate up or push it around by yourself. I think the economic impact of this would be great.

I agree with Dakkaladd. This seems to be the first step towards this.


Minus the whole queen... alien... thing... of course.

And, of course, that would eventually lead to one of these.

My engineering ex-military classmates actually laugh at these things. We already have small tanks so we don't need larger walking tanks like gundams (sadly). We also don't need anything more complicated at the basic squad level since your fellow [buttheads] is always stupid (I laughed at that part) and you wouldn't want one of these things powering down.

But yeah, as a replacement for walkers, lifters, and to help those tiny nurses lift increasingly-obese patients, it's great.

I like the lifting demonstration. It has more endurance than
TWO sweating engineers!

I'm just snarking, though.

I think the probable military application for something like
this is to rip spines out of bodies. The military hasn't had
a hand to hand upgrade like this in a while, so it'll be good
for morale (us) and bad for morale (them).

I saw this before, and am not impressed. If it is power armour then "Power armour" is going in the wrong direction. These waldoes arent even field useful, look at the power pack add ons and external stabilisers. It would best be used in the loading room of a warship where that is not an issue, or in space.

What is needed are hardsuits weith air conditioing. NASA looked to medieval armour for inspiration as to how to build better gloves, materials have changed but ergonomics hasnt. The military needs to be doing same. Make infantry that look like they are wearing full plate. But...

But its not intended to be bullet proof, except against light small arms fire.
Power armour needs to be:

- shrapnel and blast resistant.
These are the real infantry killers and generally far easier to protect against than bullets, within reason. Armour woulod reduce the lethal range of blast and fragments, not block it.

- fully NBC capable but air conditioned.
Rather than fighting at 15% effectiveness because odf a sealed suit fight at near normal effectiveness due to air conditioned confortable suits. This would give soldiers an enormous advantage in the chemical battlefield.

- better suit sealage because of hard conponents.
Harder to scratch through and unlike an NBC suit you can sit down without compressing the suits layers and retarding its effectiveness.

- envirnomental control (general).
So you can take troops from a temperate zone and dump them in the arctic, desert or jungle in an emwergency deployment without long pre-acclimatisation periods.

- more environmental control (localised).
A river in near arctic conditions is nigh on impassible without a bridge or boat. a sealed suit will keep the4 soldier dry and warm. Also absailing and climbing lugs can be suilt into the suit so that if a soldier has to climb the pressure of the support line is bourne by the wghole body. This leads to an easierr climb and allows faster movement over cetain terrain types.

- lift assist (endurance, not strength)
Not from waldoes but from effective 'calipers' built into the armour plates. It wont mechanically augment strength but better support body loading, reducing stress on the wearer and preventing some forms of sterain injury, especially back strain. The soldier would have to lift the full mass of the amour and webbing but the weight itself would be channeled through the shoulders down through thev armour plates into the leg armour and onto the ground.

- Integrated Imsging visor.
Complete with ceramic visor that maintains transparency by passing an electrical current through it. National Geographic gave away existance of this tech in an IIRC 1982 edition. Some ceramics are naturally opaque unless a current is passed through them. This current can be interrupted by intense light. Supposeldy you could look at as nuclear blast with this visor on, itbwould darken as tnhe blast flash reached it, and doesnt need a reaction time, even against light! It was remarked on as a curiousity, a side effect of 80's ceramics research. I see it is an effective countermeasure to blinding laser technology.

- Side effect benefits
Electrical insulation. Better chance of surving crushing damage. Possible etter egrees of buried soldier. You might in some circumstances get a trapped soldeir out of the armour rather than dig out armour from rubble.

Bullet proofing doesnt come into it, except in policing actions wherer you might find a demonstrator with a light handgun. against an enemy soldier with a military rifle the soldier is best and always best protected by his cover save. If anyone did produce armor thick enough to stop an assault rifle, manufacturers would happily sell bigger calibre assault rifles. Its an arms race the armour cannot compete in.

The best one could hope for for true bullet proofing are improved shoulderplates, chestplate or helmet offering some protection from attacks from certain direction, usually covering what is exposed while prone, and then omitting the arms.

The problem with all high tech equipment is cost, durability and maintenance. Take tanks. Invented 90 years ago, and incredibly useful for their ability to move across bad terrain in the face of enemy fire. Yet, there is no army in the world that has managed to equip its forces with tracked logistics vehicles even now.

Power armour would be similar -- it would probably be useful for small, elite teams on short duration missions but it will take a long time before it gets widepread.

Ok, I was kidding about the battlemech thing.

I wasn't about the powerloader. I see LOTS of real world usefulness in that, especially as it would be a heck of a lot easier to maneuver in confined spaces... like warehouses, than forklifts are.

Or for re-arming fighter aircraft. 1 guy/gal in a powerloader, or 5-6 lifting it to a hardpoint.

Quick comment vis-a-vi tracked logistics vehicles:

Don't forget, tracked vehicles require a lot of extra maintenance versus wheeled vehicles. Why put tracks on something that doesn't actually need them?