U.S. military wants an ‘Iron Man’ armored exoskeleton suit to fight enemies

According to this story

How serious are they?

In February, Adm. William McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said he wanted the new armors to be used in combat by August 2018

to that end they've hired Legacy Effects, an American special-effects company to lead the design team.

The project also brings together prop-making companies, small technology firms and defense giants such as the General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE:GD), Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE:LMT) and Raytheon Co. (NYSE:RTN).

They have all teamed up with U.S. Special Operations Command project to build the next generation of --- well---Ironman suits !

I did go to the USSOCOM website to see if they had any more details...nothing yet but this press release is supposedly coming from them...

so now I have to wonder will we really be getting Iron man suits or Robocop exoskeleton's since Legacy Effects designed and built both of those before...

Well I guess all that's left to say is I'm going to go listen to Ozzy Osbourne sing Iron Man and wait for them to make my suit in a 38 regular

The real-life “Iron Man” suit currently envisioned by developers would be powered by a staggering 365 pounds of batteries. Reuters.

a reply to: HardCorps

Turn down the volume! I'm trying to think here.

A exoskelton type of suit would be pretty easy. The problem lays in the power source.

Solar wouldn't work with today's tech. Batteries are heavy, bulky and expensive and Nuclear downsized to that level is not only achievable in today's age, but also dangerous.

But at least they are looking into the matter.

a reply to: TDawgRex

in the story that Adm. William McRaven...went on to say he doubted the power supply...whatever it'll be... would be ready to go by 2018... but he wants the suits anyway...

maybe they'll just go with one damn long extension cord until they figure out the whole dilithium crystals warp drive part?

Now back to my head banging... Oh damn Ozzy's not gonna eat another bat is he?

a reply to: HardCorps

Already been done: Real Working "Iron Man" Suit

I'll admit. It isn't exactly the Iron Man suit due to the lack of self aiming rockets and guns. And it doesn't fly like a fighter jet. But it does seem to protect the person underneath from a bit more than just bullets.

originally posted by: HardCorps
According to this story

How serious are they?

Used in combat by 2018? With a TRL 7 minimum? They may be serious, but it's wishful thinking. Unless, of course, it's been been in development for awhile and they're already at TRL 6.

Yeah I've known about this for some time now, from what I've read an asked, the Engineers (US Army) were going to field test them, the one I saw was pretty cool, but had power cords all over the place.

I think its totally next gen in today's military.

2018? That's a bit naive, unless they're farther ahead then they let on. As others here have said our power supply technology just isn't up to par yet. But that said, I think this is so interesting, the knowledge they will gain from this venture should be priceless.

a reply to: HardCorps

Um...

The issue with the batteries?

The technology which operates one of the HAL hybrid assistive limb suits, as designed by Cyberdyne from Japan, is elegant and light weight, and although it requires battery power, its batteries are not bulky. If you added to that design, the sort of bullet proof skin that Canadian inventor Troy Hurtusbise used when building his prototype Trojan S armour suit, an unpowered suit which covered 95 percent of the body and had GOD only knows how many advantages over everything the military of the US has put its men in over the last fifteen years, then you would have an Iron Man suit, sans the arc reactors, palm blasts, and flying capability.

The technology already exists. What they should be doing now, is asking the people already leading the feild in these skill sets, Troy for one of them, to work on it. He has already said that he wants the armour he designed to be available to the troops of his homeland, and the US and the UK, that his main drive, despite him having bankrupted himself several times building ever tougher armour sets, is the safety of military personnel when about their duties.

I cannot believe that the US government have had all these new players, and DARPA sitting around trying to work something out, when the technology already exists, and just needs combining together!

I'm sure they have classified battery technology to make these things work. What would be lame is if you're strapped into one of these and run out of power far away from any kind of charging station.

It would be an uneasy task to hide such a power source from potential copy cats w/o exposing where its engineering comes from. Those would dominate the war fields and lower collateral damage however. Are they able to go into space also and jump continents
Interesting technological developments, how far the designs really are would be a conspiracy.

OUTTA BOX-
Sometimes it seems things shown on TV are for sales purposes but in a not so easy detectable way. Many watch just a movie others observe how potential purchasable technologies behave in field try outs and money is generated as entertainment only. just a thought

obama was cracking jokes about "we're building iron man" recently..

..i hope he's not a fan of the marvel series

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Well again, thats just a matter of packing some clever tech into the right places on the suit. For instance, they could put pezioelectric materials into the soles of the armoured boots, or even a body glove made of the stuff, to turn all the movement made inside the suit, into power to keep the battery kicking, and they could install tiny dynamo like systems into the moving joints in the armour itself.

There are LOTS of things they could be doing, but the fact of the matter is, unless they let a nutbar like Troy into their box of tricks, and into their pockets, the military are not going to get the best suit they could have, built with a passion not just for the technology, but for keeping people alive when the crap has truly impacted the rotary airflow regulator! I would argue that no one else has the experience necessary to pull this off.

For a power source they might use an advanced version of one of these

They have been used extensively in the past to supply satellites, deep space probes and even very remote Russian lighthouses. The current ones that are admitted to publicly are large and heavy but if there is enough military interest then it's likely that they will have been very closely looked at for some serious development to make them small, light and portable.

a reply to: Anon77

I think placing a radioactive isotope power system, on a front line, would probably be a tactical error. The reality of the situation is, that no matter how well armoured, it is always possible that one of these suits might get captured, and I think there has been rather enough laxity in security, where nuclear material is concerned.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Very true, but sadly human history is littered with thousands of examples of poor military decisions. So I wouldn't be surprised if they used radioactive material or some other equally dangerous power source. All a part of the never ending game of one-upmanship that militaries across the planet seem to play... If there is one thing that humankind absolutely excels at it is finding new and ever more inventive ways to kill each other.

What I want to know is, who do they plan on using these things on?

Sounds like a bunch of over-board wanking to me.

Idon't know they couldn't even integrate the Landwarrior/Futurewarrior systems with a megabudget. Wellsome of that was capability creep but still. Now they want n Ironman suit...LMAO.

I doubt whether it would stand a direct hit from an R.P.G, or a burst from a heavy calibre machine gun ? Think about the impact shock waves on the enclosed human body...

Apart from rendering the wearer clumsy... Leave it to sci fi, where it belongs.

a reply to: HardCorps


They already have it. Some moderators will come here and delete my entry, but the U.S. military has a pretty good prototype. Courtesy of MIT/ DARPA.

May we live in interesting times...

Kratos

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Anon77

I think placing a radioactive isotope power system, on a front line, would probably be a tactical error. The reality of the situation is, that no matter how well armoured, it is always possible that one of these suits might get captured, and I think there has been rather enough laxity in security, where nuclear material is concerned.

well if the technology is getting this far ,fair to say a failsafe will be built in ....obviously will be gps tracked so if one goes somewhere it shouldn't..BOOM!!.. i imagine someone somewhere will be waiting to press a large red button on the remote control