"Exoskeletons-Human pack mule?" Topic

" Dial down the god-awful soundtrack and try to ignore the choppy camera work, but re-watch Lockheed Martin's promo video depicting its two-year-old Human Universal Load Carrier exoskeleton. Because inside of the year, an improved version of this combat exoskeleton could be headed to Afghanistan for combat trials. That's right: cyborg soldiers might, might just be months away from becoming a front-line reality.

At least, that's what a Lockheed rep indicated today at a Special Forces trade show in Tampa. Asked if there were plans to deploy the HULC exoskeleton overseas following its next round of Army testing, Lockheed's special operation program manager Keith Maxwell nodded yes and said, "after that."

Maxwell was wearing what he described as a "smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient" version of the battery-powered external skeleton, complete with an unloaded machine gun on a pivoting mechanical arm. He asked us not to photograph the exoskeleton, but he was happy to discuss it.

In essence, HULC adds an artificial, external spine, hips, legs and the aforementioned pivoting arm to a soldier's flesh and bones. The machine extremities, powered by a lithium-ion battery, redistribute and transfer up to 200 pounds of weight down and off the wearer's body, allowing him to carry more, longer. "There's a 10 percent metabolic cost for the benefit of a heavy load removed," Maxwell says.

Add loads of food, water, batteries and other supplies, and you become a human pack mule for your squadmates. Swap them out for a heavy machine gun and you transform into what Maxwell calls a "one-man crew-served weapon." Maxwell says he live-fired his machine gun just before the trade show and "felt the recoil eliminated down to one-third."

Lockheed originally rolled out HULC in 2010, but in a heavier, bulkier form that tended to run down its batteries in just an hour. The current model can go for up to eight hours "on the march," and lasts "days and days" on a single charge if you're just standing guard with a machine gun. Lockheed is still working on a fuel cell meant to provide 72 hours of power in even the most strenuous conditions.

Two summers ago the Army paid Lockheed $1.1 USD million to test HULC at the Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts. There, Lockheed discovered that training was critical. Maxwell says soldiers who expected to strap on the exoskeleton and leap into action without training on it first generally disliked the system. But with 90 minutes of instruction on "the right series of movements," wearers were able to move comfortably.

In September the Army will take the improved exoskeleton out for field tests in the United States. If all goes well and Lockheed can get the required safety certifications, HULC will head to a deployed location for a front-line trial. (These days "deployed" almost always means Afghanistan.) That won't leave HULC much time for testing in a combat environment, as regular U.S. forces are accelerating their withdrawal after 11 years of war.

But Special Forces are slated to remain in Afghanistan for years to come. If they adopt the exoskeletons, we could be seeing (one-sided) cyborg combat on a growing scale in the near future"
From
link

Questions:

a) Anybody had used them?
b) Do you think they are great?
c) Are there miniatures in 28mm of modern soldiers with this equipment?

Thanks in advance.

Amicalement
Armand

Looks interesting. I was hoping to see when he fell how easy it would be to get up (did see him dump the pack pretty easily). I wonder if they'll have some type of solar recharger for the batteries?

Possibility, that would give an indefinite charge length for "just being on guard duty"…

200 pounds? Lets see – 70-100 pounds (conservative) personal load that the troopie would be carrying already – how much does the exoskelton weigh? Say another 70 pounds? Without spare batteries? So, you might be able to carry 30 pounds of 'extra' gear for 8 hours.

Then laugh when the whole thing plunges through a flimsy local bridge that would carry a normal man, or just sinks into the swamp because you have just increased the ground load by a factor of at least 2, more likely 3. And then have to call in a recovery vehicle to get the poor troopie out.

I think it has the most future as a 'Ripley' loader device, lifting pallets off trucks, lifting beams and such in well equiped rear areas, not in forward areas where you'd need to call in a Chinook to recover it if it developed a short.

A suggested alternate title for the Lockheed video:
"Dude, where'd I leave my HumVee?"

This stuff has more use in civilian applications – rescue work or for people moving heavy loads around a warehouse or ship's hold.

I'm not saying 'never happen' in a combat setting but I think it's unlikely to become commonplace. What is perhaps more useful is a 'robo sled' to carry all the extra gear – something akin to the handcarts used by the Germans and others in WW2 only self propelled and with some autonomy/remote control capability.

Just limiting the loads troops are allowed to carry into combat to a more reasonable level could also work.

I suppose the SF types might find it useful under certain circumstances, but regular infantry less so IMO.

Military requirements drives so much R&D these days – always has really – that we may get these suits to provide mobility to disabled people or elderly who can no longer move about unaided.

Power is an issue but batteries are getting lighter all the time. Compressed air works well, but again the tanks are heavy.

@Bsrlee: That's a 200lb *load*, not counting the weight of the exo itself. That's close to triple the usual load of a modern trooper.

But they still need to make the upper-body half. Being able to walk around with 200lbs on my back would be cool, but soldiers don't seem to do a lot of walking around once the shooting starts. I really don't want to have to do push-ups with twice my body-weight on my arms.

Speaking of mules, whatever happened to that robo-mule that was online a year ago or so? It looked like a skeleton pack animal without a head, a bit creepy looking when it recovered from being kicked. You could load that up with gear or even put a mount for a LMG.