Human Exoskeleton

[Brian G Turner]

Forget all the hype about it being used for public emergency services - this is primarily a military application that will only see a trickle down into civilian use once the US military has had a few good years of wider play with it.


Artificial exoskeleton takes the strain

A human exoskeleton, which could help soldiers and fire-fighters carry heavy loads, is about to take its first public steps.

Called the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, or BLEEX, it is part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency venture designed to help foot soldiers carry heavier loads over even longer distances, by connecting robotic supports to their legs to reduce the load.

Besides helping soldiers, it could also assist medical personnel carrying wounded people from disaster areas, or fire fighters in hauling heavy equipment up countless flights of stairs.

A human "pilot" straps the exoskeleton's legs to their own and dons a large rucksack that contains the engine, control system and a space for the payload, says project leader Homayoon Kazerooni.


More: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994750

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

That was interesting - and I swear, after reading Fred Pohl's Man Plus this weekend, putting this particular news story together with all the interest in Mars, I'm just wondering whether we aren't tipped to send a cyborg to the Red Planet within a decade...

 

[dwndrgn]

Reminds me of the engines that people strapped themselves into to unload and move heavy equipment in Aliens. Combine this with the new fabric they've come up with and tons of sci fi authors are just muttering to themselves, "Why am I not getting credit for that? It was my idea..."

That also brings to mind an interesting question; if these types of things hadn't already been imagined by science fiction creators, would we have gotten to this point so quickly? I mean, without that initial imagining, would the researchers have come to this as quickly as they have or would it have been many more years as their research would have been less focussed? I don't know that there is any way to prove or disprove this but it is an interesting thing to ponder. Should researchers gobble up science fiction in the hopes of getting ideas to further their research?

 

[littlemissattitude]

That also brings to mind an interesting question; if these types of things hadn't already been imagined by science fiction creators, would we have gotten to this point so quickly? I mean, without that initial imagining, would the researchers have come to this as quickly as they have or would it have been many more years as their research would have been less focussed? I don't know that there is any way to prove or disprove this but it is an interesting thing to ponder. Should researchers gobble up science fiction in the hopes of getting ideas to further their research?

I figure that if the truth were know, a lot of recent technological advances have their roots in what engineers read in science fiction novels when they were little boys.

When I went to my community college honor society's international convention a few years ago, one of our speakers was LeVar Burton (invited primarily for his role as a literacy advocate as the host of "Reading Rainbow", a show I will freely admit to watching whenever I can). While he spoke mostly about literacy issues, he of course did address the "Star Trek" experience. It was his contention - offered only half in jest - that we have the cell phone in its present configuration because someone watched their original "Star Trek" as a kid and was entranced by the communicators (the ones that flipped open). And, you have to admit, an awful lot of cell phones do flip open very much like those communicators.

 

[Michael]

I might need to read more on this, but the exoskeletons don't seem ambitious enough to me. For military applications, I'm not sure the technology isn't available to build armored suits similar to Heinlein's in Starship Troopers.

 

[Michael]

I made a similar observation when I got my first cell phone, littlemiss. They do look an awful lot like Star Trek communicators!

Let's not forget Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I still need to read it myself, but I have heard (we know how reliable that is--oh, well) that Nemo's sub was nuclear-powered. Does anyone know for sure? anyone who has actually read the book?

 

[Hypes]

Th problem with this, in a military sense, is that it has a high rate of failure. US troops in Iraq have been issued all new radios and communications gear which is much lighter and more optimised than what they once had.

At the moment, the vast majority are using hand-held Motorolas, because all the fancy new gear simply does not work in the harsh environment that they operate in. Having this on while under fire is nigh certain death- imagine if a bullet hits the BLEEX command console, or vital wiring? Then you're crippled.

Yes, this is certainly the future, but we really shouldn't get carried away.

 

[Michael]

Good point. Oh, well, I'm a dreamer.

 

[flygin]

I figured I'd revive an old thread, rather than start a new one. It looks like the exoskeleton in I, Brian's post above has evolved.

Exoskeleton

 

[The Ace]

That's scary.

 

[Overread]

I think I saw that around christmas that vid.
Its scary, but still resigned to the roll of glorified forked lift at the moment
the power pack for that (not only being heavy and large) as well as the required body armour for effective battle situations (you would be ducking and covering as much) I think will give this machine a short battle ready active time - that is limiting in a long fire fight. Though as improvments in energy storage evolve who knows....