Those of us who know and love the great Robert Heinlein's science fiction will remember the Mobile Infantry of "Starship Troopers" (not the ghastly movie of a few years ago, which did more to damage the Master's work than just about any other film adaptation of an SF novel, but the original book, of course). In this seminal work, future infantry wear powered armor and rampage across the galaxy, doing nasty things to humanity's enemies.
It seems that the US Army is on the verge of fielding at least some of those capabilities. For several years a powered exoskeleton has been in development, designed to allow its wearer to work with heavy weights or move heavy objects, far greater in size and mass than normal human muscle could handle.
Sarcos, Inc. in Salt Lake City has been developing its robotic suit for several years. Last year Raytheon bought its robotic business, a clear sign that this technology is maturing. Now it seems that it's almost ready for prime time.
A video clip has now been released, showing the prototype suit in operation. It still needs an external power source, as batteries of current design can only last for thirty minutes: but that's merely an engineering and production problem. It's already very impressive, both in the weights it can handle and the speed at which it can react to its wearer's movements.
Another interesting technological development has been the use of GPS-guided parachutes to drop cargo to soldiers in the field. These delivery systems can land with pinpoint accuracy on a predesignated position, eliminating the frequent problems experienced with conventional parachute delivery. They've also been tested with weights up to 30,000 pounds, which means that really big vehicles such as MRAP's or Stryker's might one day be air-dropped to replace those damaged in combat.
According to Popular Mechanics, such systems have already been field-tested in Afghanistan.
The video clip below shows one such system during testing.
Interesting stuff! I suspect that in a few years time, those of us who are veterans of earlier generations of military service will be shaking our heads in awe at some of these new technologies, and wishing we'd had them instead of having to do everything the hard way!
Peter
3 comments:
I suspect in a few years we will be desperately wishing they had never been invented. The disparity between military and civilian armament grows ever larger- Every time I hear of some great new military invention I wonder how long it will be before it is used on US.
The thing isn't even a prototype. America has started lagging in such things for a while now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynL8BCXih8U
HAL is being leased out to users in Japan for a while now. The neural based interface I believe is better than the feed-back systems prefered in the U.S.
We may be getting Starship Troopers, but I think I'd rather some of the stuff I've seen in anime.
Incidentally, the video says it's a test of the new GPS parachute system, not armor of any sort.
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