Prototype exoskeletons are already making people stronger — strap this Berkeley contraption on, and a backbreaking load suddenly feels about as heavy as a couple of copies of the Sunday paper.
But as anyone who’s ever read Iron Man knows, exoskeletons are supposed to do more that make you strong. They’re supposed to protect you from bad guys, too.
Fortunately, the folks from New Ipswich, NH’s Warwick Mills haven’t forgotten that key lesson. The company recently received a contract from the Navy to put together “Exoskeleton Blast Protection for IEDs.“
Warwick has already provided the “protective crash bag material used to land NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers.” Now it wants to use that expertise, to “create a lightweight, flexible, multi-layered system that will effectively mitigate the powerful forces of tension and compression that can cause traumatic limb separation caused by IED blast.”
Most existing body armor systems use a hard plate to protect against ballistic threats to the torso, and some also contain a softer fabric system to provide protection from fragmentation, but there is nothing available to today’s warfighters that addresses issues of limb separation. This lack of protection leaves the wearer’s extremities vulnerable to severe, often fatal, injuries caused by blast overpressure.
Our research efforts will seek to achieve an optimal material combination that can absorb and dissipate energy from overpressure and can also withstand fragmentation of 0.100–1.2g.
Only after they’ve got the energy absorbtion thing worked out, Warwick promises, will they move on to installing stuff like repulsor rays and energy shields.
Good Morning Folks,
Although I can’t totaly disagree with the comments by “pedestrian” I have lived long enough to see some “Sci-fi.” come into being.
For those of you who remember “Future Shock” and “The Greening of America” you may be interested in the latest read along the lines of furure perdictions, it’s calle: “The Singularity”, When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil, Viking, 652 pgs., 2005, $29.95.
The author makes a case for nano-machines and sub-atomic deconstruction and re-construction using the Carbon Atom. It’s an interesting read if you can get by the author refering to his own past books and a rather agressive time frame for all this to happen. Unfortunealy as in most books of this nature his conclusion is kind of lame.
The application to “Defense Tech” of course is the rearrangeing of DNA and cells to create humans that are custom designed for military purposes, such as soldiers who can hold their breath for thirty minutes, have slow bleeding, 20/10 vision or can lift and carry heavy loads and not need large amounts of water.
Of coure the next “Barry Bonds” is just a season or two away. Stay tuned.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
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