| Tango01 | 06 Jul 2014 10:06 p.m. PST |
…Of The Future. "The Oscar-nominated designers at Legacy Effects have outfitted such memorable movie warriors as The Terminator, RoboCop, Captain America and Iron Man. The special-effects company is now at work on what seems a mission impossible: Building an Iron Man-style suit to protect and propel elite U.S. troops by encasing them in body armor equipped with an agile exoskeleton to enable troops to carry hundreds of pounds of gear. The 3-D printers that once churned out parts for actor Robert Downey Jr.'s red and gold movie armor are making pieces for a Pentagon prototype. Military officials recently examined three designs, an early step in a project by the U.S. Special Operations Command to create a new generation of protective armor within the next four years…" Full article here
link Amicalement
Armand |
| Tango01 | 06 Jul 2014 10:08 p.m. PST |
Forget these.
Amicalement
Armand |
| EJNashIII | 07 Jul 2014 8:44 p.m. PST |
It will suffer from the same basic problem Iron-man had to solve, a compact power source. Where is the Arc reactor? |
| PMC317 | 18 Jul 2014 2:51 p.m. PST |
The first step is probably using heavily armoured powered exo-skeleton suits with rechargeable battery packs in storming buildings or similar CQB. Police and SF units taking delivery. Solve the power issue – and there's a LOT of people working on it – and the armoured exoskeleton becomes a lot more practical. |
 Legion 4   | 18 Jul 2014 2:54 p.m. PST |
I like to see it come into reality … |
| Lion in the Stars | 19 Jul 2014 12:16 p.m. PST |
One old DARPA project was to make a microturbine generator for the lightly-armored Future Soldier program (ie, the US Army Power Ranger). Only makes ~20watts or so, but will run 8 hours on ~20oz of jet fuel. It's also about the size of an M16 magazine pouch, including both fuel and batteries/capacitors. My LG Ally cellphone draws about 5 watts while sending/receiving, and has all the capabilities the comms system for a power armor suit would need. Which leaves the rest of the power supplied by the generator to charge the supercapacitors. The hell with batteries, humans shift from burning 125 watts walking around to over 2500 watts in an Olympic-level sprint. Assuming that your armor and gear masses about as much as a human does (~90kg), the armor needs to generate 125 watts constantly and 2500 watts at full combat emergency power. So you'd need more or bigger microturbine generators, but they'd work. |
| tuscaloosa | 19 Jul 2014 1:20 p.m. PST |
I think the answer is to put the power generator in any of these robot "mule" systems, and allow for the trooper to periodically recharge from the mule. Which means your typical infantry stand of the near future would be 5-6 soldiers in a loose formation around a robot mule. |
| Legion 4 | 19 Jul 2014 3:45 p.m. PST |
That may be one solution … but I'm personally not that happy with it … don't like being wedded to a vehicle. Even a 4 legged 'bot … |
| Steve Wilcox | 19 Jul 2014 4:39 p.m. PST |
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| Lion in the Stars | 19 Jul 2014 5:21 p.m. PST |
For extremely short-term ops like a SWAT raid or the Bin Laden op, you might be OK with having most of your power supply not on the armor. Mogadishu is a perfect example of why that would be a really BAD idea. |
| badger22 | 19 Jul 2014 9:24 p.m. PST |
Shoot one mule, down goes the squad. Armys really dont like things like that. owen |
has been itching for a small Soviet project!
