It’s like seeing two people that you’re really confident are just right for each other.
I was walking through the warrior toy bazaar known at Modern Day Marine at Quantico when, in one of the gadget-filled rooms, I came across the HULC — Human Universal Load Carrier — a battery-powered exoskeleton that will let a grunt carry up to 200 pounds of gear on his back up to 20 kilometers. You can even run seven miles per hour with it — 10 mph in short bursts — said Keith Maxwell of Lockheed Martin, which earlier this year entered into a deal with HULC maker Berkeley Bionics to develop the system for ground troops.
But just one room over I spied a backpack that slid up and down on rails as its wearer walked or ran; the ergonomic design not only relieves stress on the wearer, but the up-and-down movement generates up to 40 watts of electricity.
Now I don’t know if the power-generating backpack could be a continuous energy-source for the battery-powered exoskeleton — thereby eliminating the HULC’s need for recharged or new batteries — but I thought the two should get to know each other.
Marty Belcher, lead pack designer for Lightning Packs LLC of Stafford, Pa., hadn’t seen the HULC as of late yesterday, but he sure seemed interested when told about the system. Over at the Berkeley location, engineer Russ Angold — company vice president of engineering and HULC demonstrator — told me he was “very aware” of the electricity-generating pack. And he happily pocketed Belcher’s business card — which I showed him.
Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?
— Bryant Jordan
“Now I don’t know if the power-generating backpack could be a continuous energy-source for the battery-powered exoskeleton — thereby eliminating the HULC’s need for recharged or new batteries”.
Glad to hear you say that. I expect you’ll be wanting to snap up some shares in my new company, Perpetual Motion Machines Inc
@ A. Physicist?
So kinetic energy can’t charge a battery? Sounds like you misunderstood something.
I guess if you believe in perpetual motion you really won
Greg: The point A.Physicist is trying to make is that you can’t provide enough energy by walking with an exoskeleton and power said exoskeleton. Look up energy conservation and the laws of thermodynamics.
The exoskeleton looks cool and like it will work. The energy producing backpack seems like a winner too, especially considering howmany electronic gadgets the troops have today.
Yes its quite possible that the author got caught up in the perpetual motion band-wagon, however I wanted to point out that there is another source of energy in this system: the soldier/human. No I don’t believe that the backpack be able to power the HULC, but as is my understanding the HULC is an assistive/additive system and therefore the soldiers energy output is also part of the equation. Just my 2cents.
@Oblat: if we are casting votes, I think…
1. Osprey is an interesting design, that went too far over budget
2. Missile defense is a great idea, keep it funded
3. Given my perceived (only partially informed) risk rate of ‘damage’ caused by cyber warfare vs. my perceived risk rate of ‘damage’ from nuclear war I believe cyber warfare to be an equal or greater threat than nuclear war
4. Yes, anything with lasers in it is cool
Nowhere did the post mention perpetual motion. But an energy generating back pack could at least extend battery life of an exoskeleton system, if it couldn’t generate 100% of the energy needed. I don’t know. Aren’t a lot of you missing the forest for the trees.
The energy that would otherwise be wasted by lifting the pack every step is saved. With power generation, I imagine there will still be about the same amount of energy wasted. More useful to just save the energy I think (I’ve got a bad back and I hate to see people wasting their back).
“Aren’t a lot of you missing the forest for the trees.” No. If the backpack generates x Watts while walking, it will take y > x Watts of mechanical energy input into the backpack. Given generous efficiencies, one can expect y > ~10x. The mechanical energy input is coming from the human user and the exoskeleton. Even if the human is supplying 90% of the mechanical energy, it ends up as a net loss for the exoskeleton-backpack circuit.
Besides, if the exoskeleton is electromechanical, one can use it to recharge the batteries by itself while going downhill — just like a hybrid car. No need to throw in a backpack and try to break the laws of thermodynamics.
Even if the suit can’t generate it’s own power, that doesn’t mean the two wouldn’t make a good combo. Think about it, if the H.U.L.C works as advertised, the user will be able to carry more gear, and if the back pack works as advertised, you can make said gear lighter because you don’t have to haul around extra batteries. The result is you would be able to carry more extensive gear, (i.e, communications) into the field.
“Even if the suit can’t generate it’s own power, that doesn’t mean the two wouldn’t make a good combo. Think about it, if the H.U.L.C works as advertised, the user will be able to carry more gear, and if the back pack works as advertised, you can make said gear lighter because you don’t have to haul around extra batteries.“
I want to stamp out this mis-impression before it propagates any further. Using the backpack with HULC is like driving a car down the freeway with the brakes on, using the heat from the brake pads to warm your seats, and then claiming that you’ve saved energy in the process.
Every watt of power generated by the backpack is a watt that has to be created by HULC, and the process is very inefficient. Because energy conversion from the HULC batteries to mechanical energy and back to the generator in the backpack loses efficiency at each stage, you’re really looking at a HUGE net LOSS of energy.
What’s lighter, batteries or a generation system?
Kinetic-based regeneration systems tend to be mechanically complex.
The reason why the capability wasn’t integrated was because each company had a seperate base of expertise, and companies don’t like to collaborate when there’s a risk of leakage of trade secrets. Then there’s the issue of risking the demise of a project if one part doesn’t work well enough (imagine a backpack that didn’t provide enough power for the exo, or a malfunctioning exo combined with a perfectly working backpack).
To summarize. The exoskeleton allows you to carry more. The backpack can generate power for more stuff. What’s the problem?
I’m assuming this power generating backpack is like any other backpack, you use it to carry stuff. Probably stuff that a soldier would be carrying already. Using a backpack that generates power as you walk would cut down on spare batteries right?
“To summarize. The exoskeleton allows you to carry more. The backpack can generate power for more stuff. What’s the problem?“
The problem is huge. HULC uses batteries to power your movement. The backpack then converts some of this movement back into electricity. For every battery you avoid carrying because of the backpack, you have to carry many more batteries to provide the extra power to HULC.
Perpetual motion machine? I am not sure this will really work, unless the lost energy being put back is generated by the person wearing it. Otherwise you are going to be continuously loosing energy to heat, friction, etc , while adding extra weight because of the power generator making the system able to carry less weight.
Looks like technology for the sake of it, to me. Why make it? because we can. What will be really scary is when the human element beomes surplus to requirements and ground troops are replaced by fully/ semi autonomus robots. Current examples suggest there is a long way to go.
You could hear/ see this mule from a mile away:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
This one looks bloody scary, Japanese of course, a bit slow though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OksmJthZc&feature=related
And finally, this fine example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-j7n0AnIGM&feature=related
Shame the proud inventor wont put his money where his mouth is and do a live fire test.
“cyber war is as dangerous a nuclear weapons “
Accualy yes it is oblat. Considering how many people could die if the power stops flowing in a place like the northeast in the middle of a blizzard for weeks or if a similar action is taken in arizona durring the heat of the summer.
“osprey is a great design, missile defense is a great“
Well the osprey is a good design very manuverable and fast. But lets not forget its the first of its kind. Kinda like the first airplane or steam ship or locomotive or tank.
And yes missile defense is a good idea. Its kinda like body armor you dont realy appreciate it till you get hit and dont bleed to death.
And considering the amount of cool ass things with lasers in them like say.
Laser guided bombs laser range finders…and well its long list you get it.
Basicaly well that whole post was well you get it.
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The HULC is a great idea and the power generator is to though i dont think its there yet.
The great thing about the hulc is you could provide more body armor mor com gear and gadgets and other systems in some cases or use it all for just general maintanence around base.
Basicaly the power suit is something that needs inventing. Now if we could just get a good powerplant in the basterd and some carbon carbon armor wed be set.
1) The pack could be used to power peripherals.
2) The kinetic energy for the pack is not generated by the exoframe, but rather by the MRE-fueled body of the pilot. Sure, the exoframe uses energy to magnify that energy for lifting, but the pack does not affect that motion whatsoever, being that it is a separate system.
The backpack uses the kinetic energy that is already being generated by walking. The energy is just going to waste as it is, so the backpack harnesses that energy and converts it to electrical energy. It doesn’t take any extra energy than wearing a standard backpack.
The backpack would be wasteful. It’s not 100% efficient, you see. It will never make back all the energy it needs. Let’s say it’s super-efficient. We’ll say that it creates one unit of energy for every two you put into it. That’s really good.
Now you’re going to strap it to the exoskeleton. So if walking around for an hour in this exoskeleton normally uses 1000 units of energy, it’s going to require more when you’re wearing the backpack. So we’ll say with the backpack on, you’re using 1100 units of energy. Now, that extra 100 units of energy is going to be converted into 50 by your super-efficient backpack. This means that you’re only burning 1050 units of energy in your hour long walk — which is 50 more than what you started with. It’s much more efficient to just carry more batteries. Theoretically, something like a solar cell could create more energy, because it’s pulling in something from outside of the system.
Will some of that energy come from the human? Yes. But that eliminates the entire reason to use an exoskeleton in the first place. The whole reason to have the exoskeleton is because we want to reduce the energy used by and the stresses on the soldier.
Like I said the same people that believe in perpetual motion also believe in the osprey, cyber war, SDI and the long list of stupid projects that defy logic.
Is it any wonder that 1/3 of Americans are defrauded every year.
Save the money wasted on those programs and give those people a decent education.
Jordan, DARPA was working on boots that generates power years ago. Maybe you want to add it to your HULC combo meal. However, don’t overestimate its potential. It may expand the operation time, and allow rechearge, but likely not enough to recharge to 100% during operation. You would probably consume more power than recharging. Meanwhile, Berkley UC building BLEEX does not enjoy battery power, and uses fuel instead, due to dead weight of a dead battery, and probably with an energy density of petroleum based energy compared to batteries.
I will add links about power generating boots FYI.
http://abcnews.go.com/technology/cuttingedge/story?id=98238&page=1
http://www.darpa.mil/darpatech2000/speeches/dsospeeches/nowak.pdf
However, another concern I have is memory effect of the batteries. This is not the case for all batteries, but depending on the type of batteries, recharging while in use is not good for the battery.
How do you stop an attacking exoskeleton and kidnap it simultaneously, to examine, reverse-engineer and / or to use it against other attacking exoskeletons?
Just shoot the fat Nazi inside the exoskeleton, and the exoskeleton will keep running towards you, with the dead weight bouncing inside it… HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!! I made a funny!!!
konu anlat?m iyi ve a
If a charging system can’t produce more energy from something other then electricity, even if it uses kenetic energy as a link, then there is no point in hooking it up because it will be a fifth wheel; just sapping energy.
But I think many of you have over looked the fact that there maybe a lot of tricks and tech that both these systems share. So maybe they wouldn’t be bad bedfellows.
As many people already pointed out, this won’t work the way the author intends. However, what this combination should do at the very least is extend the time before the exo power systems need full recharging. Depending on how efficient the overall combined design is, we’re looking at maybe 10–20% longer battery life. It’s essentially the same thing as regenerative braking for cars. What it comes down to is if the troops are willing to haul maybe several extra pounds for a longer battery life for the exo. Of course we’d then have to compare efficiencies between this system, more batteries, etc.
No, I think you all are missing the point. If the HULC allows ONE soldier to carry 200 lbs. of anything, even if it’s only 20 klicks, that’s called an improvement. SO, it really won’t matter if the energy-harnessing backpack is 2 lbs. heavier than your average backpack. Think about it. These guys carry more than their fair share any day of the week, now they have the chance to get help to do it, easier and more efficiently. SO WHAT if the backpack can’t charge the battery on the exo? If the backpack is any good, it could build up the charge necessary to field the ever-growing array of electronics equipment that soldier may have to carry. Can a soldier carry a normal backpack instead? Yeah, but it’s just energy wasted. Can someone carry the “power-pak” and not wear the exo? Absolutely, but you could carry more, more easily, if you were wearing it.
Please stop turning this blog into physics class. I hated physics class. Mostly because of the teacher.
P.S. Lasers are cool.
This blog is called DefenseTech for a reason. We are debating the benefits of a recharging backpack on technical grounds.
Having a recharging system for peripheral electronics that is insufficient for the exo is probably a good alternative; however it begs the question of how much electricity is required to recharge peripherals. I am wondering if solar would be a good way to go.