Real-life power armor???

You know that thing is going to be cumbersome, slow, and make a really annoying noise when you move.
 
They aren't the first really. Quite a few people have been working on something like this for a while now. It is a step in the right direction but it needs a lot of work to become something like powered armor.

http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/bleex.htm

There are others as well, supported by DARPA. The links I have are old though and dead. Look around, you'll find them. I want to see the technical specs on that thing though. - Colt
 
Damn Japanese. Yeah sure, it's to "help the elderly". More like "help the elderly become the ultimate fighting machine, a match for Godzilla, Megalon, and Jet Jaguar together".

The next war involving Japan is going to look like a dodgy anime.
 
I did saw a news article once about this guy who lost his arm and they gave him a robotic arm... which pretty much looked exactly like Arnie's arm in the Terminator movies... it freaked me out man.
 
I saw this article about a concept for an enviroment sealed, servo-assisted armor that increases the soldiers ability to carry equpiment by about 400 pounds. The only problem with the technology was creating a small enough power source for it.
 
Those crazy Japs, what will they come up with next. :wink:

Japanese machinery and robotics manufacturer Sakakibara-Kikai has released the first genuine bi-pedal exoskeleton – a landmark event and one which is certain to attract a lot of attention for the company. Mechanatrons and BattleMechs have long been the subject of scifi books, comics and movies with the promise of cyborg technology popularised by the smash sixties television series “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

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http://www.sakakibara-kikai.co.jp/

Some video clips of the walker.
http://www.sakakibara-kikai.co.jp/products/other/images/shot.wmv
http://www.sakakibara-kikai.co.jp/products/other/images/robo_s.wmv
 
That site might be totally bogus, I'm not sure. I saw "information" on that thing on some random forum I was linked to. It had videos as well. That thing is an absolute joke. They showed it's abilities by having it shuffle around (no, it doesn't actually walk) and shoot pingpong balls or something similar at stationary targets. The thing shuddered and acted like it would fall over every time it moved a leg. By the end of the second clip my expression ended up as :| pretty much.

This is actually an alright overview of how exoskeletons might work:
How Exoskeletons Will Work
- Colt
 
Neither the BLEEX of the imitation Battlemech impressed me. The BLEEX just stumped around slowly, and the 'Mech failed to inspire anything but the minor sense of awe you get when you see any large project like that, regardless of actual success; i.e. it is a significant outpouring of engineering resources, but to what end? When I first read about it, I thought it actually walked. It just sort of shuffles around painfully slowly.

The site with all the black and white photographs is interesting but I think the information about the cyborg arm is a little off; as was stated earlier Hardiman was the name of the GE hydraulic exoskeleton for heavy industrial work; and the guy in the photo is actually "teaching" the arm with a teaching aid; the hand at the end looks too human; unlike the one in the next photo... He's probably teaching the arm so someone else can use it... (You "teach" or program robot arms with a mock-up device called a "teaching pendant") I've seen such cyber-arms before and in fact they're very old, relatively speaking, one shown in an old Popular Mechanics from the 1960s had a screw-jack in it and was quite powerful from mechanical advantage. More recently someone was fitted with *two* cyber arms that were surprisingly quick in action!

Oh, and for feck's sake turn your pop-up blocker to maximum before you click on Colt's link, I blocked like 6 before one got through on medium. High, of course, catces about 99% of them.
 
BLEEX is good work for what it is. It's specifically aimed at the military use where you're already carrying a large pack and can't just recharge every hour. I still want to see the technical specs on that Japanese project (the none idiot one).

Sorry about the links, I use Firefox and the Adblock extension so I have no problem with any of that. - Colt
 
I'm really impressed with the BLEEX project; it seems so futuristic. However, i was quite amused while watching the videos - a fat dude dressed up like a soldier who's 'legs' make such a racket he'd be heard miles off. Whilst i realise that it is still under production, would you rather be able to sneak up without being heard and wasted or carry a few 100 extra pounds?
 
To be honest of all the system I saw the one that really impressed me was the GE Hardiman suit. It's huge, imposing, and looks like you could tear down walls with it, probably because you could. They never got it to work quite right (You couldn't use both legs at once without the thing going spastic on you, so you sort of had to plod, and one arm kept acting up on them, so it was abandoned) but goddamn did it look the part. And that was 1965. I'd love to see more of the new Japanese thing. This technology fascinates me.
 
An industrial exoskeleton will probably end up looking like the powerloader from Aliens if anything. Hydraulically powered, bright colors with lights, compact.
 
I wouldn't exactly call it "Compact" but it might, depending on the industry. I'm not sure if the "Power loader" is actually a viable concept since it's really just a walking forklift and performs the same task; moving crates in a warehouse environment. The GE Hardiman seemed more like it could be used for heavy pipefitting, demolition, welding, machine assembly, mining, and all sorts of other uses. The more adaptable something is, the better.

I'm surprised that the concept of Power Armor actually hasn't come up in real life; the main idea behind these battlefield exoskeletons seems to be making the soldier faster or able to carry more. Someone in powered armor like we see in Fallout and other places is more or less impervious to small-arms fire, protected from chemical attack, able to break down doors with physical force alone, and on top of it all can carry stuff -lots of it! I'm not sure that fitting an enhancing-only exoskeleton to all troops would be anywhere near as useful as turning a smaller number into walking tanks.
 
I'm actually going to build some power armor...

What I want to do is take a whole bunch of 1 inch carbon pipe and build a workable frame around the entire body, once you can freely move in it and have it bend every which way i will apply pressure controled sensors to everything. So, there will be a sensor above your toes that if you lift the front of your foot it will lift the machine automatically, and if you press lightly it will only move slowly and if you press it full length it will lift at maximum speed.

I'm just now going into a job were i can save money for this project, but the first thing i will spend my money on is a welder, pipe bender, chop saw, and a bunch of cheap pipe to make a prototype for this... I want to make the device with -no- programming hardware or software, it will all be response buttons.

Once i get everything done in carbon i will buy a bunch of schedule 10 (about 1/16 of an inch thick) 1 inch or schedule 20 (about 1/8 of an inch thick) 2/3 of an inch stainless steel piping and build the device in full with that. Then with the added strength apply the motors and rigging for movement control.

I think this is the only way this will ever get done, these other approaches seem -way tooooo complicated- for their own good. Devices that can do a hundred things on paper but can do -nothing- in reality.

This is my dream
 
Cool...
I read a sci-fi story recently which I am ashamed to say that I can't remember the title of where human soldiers fought aliens in power armor(humans,that is, not aliens). Most of the story was actually about the human grunts training off-world on a frozen planet on using the power suit. Anyways my point is that they spent most of the time just training how no to rip themselves in half while using the strength enhancing features of the suit...

Intersting concept, actually, for FO3 I mean.. Maybe you should have to be trained to use the power armor... hmmm...
 
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