Power Armor?

RedMercury said:

The technology, except for the power source, exists today. It just needs to be integrated, and a suitable powerpack designed. Protection will likely be in the 7.62 to 12.7 (in critical areas) range, plus, probably most importantly, protection from shrapnel. It would have integral heavy machine guns and possibly light rocket launchers to combat other power suits of the same weight class. It would need to be flexible enough to prone and take advantage of cover and concealment, since the armor protection isn't that high. Its open terrain mobility might be better than foot infantry due to assistive leg actuation. Integrated thermal sensors will make it pretty good for finding troops behind concealment.

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PanAsian said:

When I read the thread title of 'power armor' my first thought was of a science fiction force field! Although that is not so far off anymore with active defense weapons, essentially an active defense weapon is just a conceptually mirrored passive force field. I would think that the combination of the development of hardkill lasers, electromagnetic guns, and the detection and aiming components of active defense weapons would eventually become 'power armor'.

Combined with giant Japanese cartoon (for now) robots of course.

Of course by then someone would come up with a way to defeat lasers, electromagnetic guns, and the detection and aiming systems...

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DARPA's Warrior Web project may provide super-human enhancements
May 5, 2014

By David McNally, RDECOM Public Affairs


Army Technology Magazine
May/June 2014 Focus: Soldier of the Future


ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (May 5, 2014) -- Dismounted Soldiers carrying full battle gear are pushed to their physical limits. Soldiers often heft 100 pounds or more of essentials. How the Soldier of the future maintains a decisive edge may lie in innovations developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA.

"That load is a critical issue," said Lt. Col. Joe Hitt, who until recently was Warrior Web program manager. "In Warrior Web, we want to explore approaches which make that kind of load feel, in terms of the effort to carry it, as if its weight has been cut in half. That's the goal."

DARPA launched the Warrior Web program in September 2011, seeking to create a soft, lightweight undersuit to help reduce injuries and fatigue while improving mission performance.

"The number one reason for discharge from the military in recent years is musculoskeletal injury," Hitt said. "Warrior Web is specifically being designed to address the key injuries at the ankle, knee, hip, lower back and shoulders."

Warrior Web would protect injury-prone areas by stabilizing and reducing stresses on joints and promoting efficient and safe movement over a wide range of activities, he said.

While protecting against injury, Warrior Web also seeks to make Soldiers into better performers by giving them the feeling of a lighter load and enhancing their existing physical capabilities.

"We're assessing new technologies that could even allow a Soldier to run a four-minute mile," Hitt said. "For example, we have components such as motors and springs integrated into a suit which will augment the work performed by the muscles in the legs. This may be a pathway to enhancing performance."

Such performance enhancement may sound like science fiction.

"The theory behind it is if you can provide enough force to the runner, you could probably have them do a four-minute mile," said Michael LaFiandra, chief of the Dismounted Warrior Branch at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. "We're skeptical because we're researchers and it's part of our job to question everything. But, they're bringing the technology here. They want to demonstrate this four-minute mile concept and we're hopeful that they can do it."

Wearable technologies are the newest buzz in the commercial tech world. Sensors can measure heartbeats, blood pressure and steps taken. This information is useful to an individual interested in trying to live a healthy, active lifestyle. However, the information may be critical to a small unit leader when Soldiers are networked together. A leader would be able to monitor health signs in real time to better evaluate situations and make good decisions.

DARPA, along with scientists from the Army Research Laboratory Human Research and Engineering Directorate, or ARL-HRED, tested nine prototype Warrior Web systems on Soldiers over 21 weeks during the first phase of the program.

"I think it has enormous potential," LaFiandra said. "When you look at the amount of load Soldiers are being asked to carry and the various types of terrain they're being asked to carry it over, they need some sort of assistance."

The Army has looked at off-loading gear to a robotic asset or even precision airdrops as ways of reducing Soldier load.

"Those methods will be effective to some extent," LaFiandra sad. "The reality still remains that Soldiers are going to be carrying a lot of weight. If we want them to be able to perform their mission and carry this weight, we need to do something to help them."

The initial prototypes went through rigorous evaluation at the Soldier Performance and Equipment Advanced Research Facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. This facility features a state-of-the art bio-mechanics laboratory where researchers capture high-resolution, highly-controlled data. Immediately adjacent to lab, there is a two and a half mile cross-country course through the woods.

"We can have Soldiers wearing the system walking on the treadmill, measuring how hard the foot hits the ground and how hard their muscles are working, and then have them immediately go outside and climb over stumps and downed trees and walk through water to their ankles if we want them to," LaFiandra said. "We're also developing ways of capturing more of the high-resolution laboratory data in that field environment."

"I think this approach has contributed to our success because all of the performers knew that they would be undergoing independent testing by a very qualified team with an excellent facility," Hitt said.

DARPA is also partnering with the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, or NSRDEC, and Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts.

"They are one of our stakeholders," Hitt said. "They're part of our Warrior Web community, which will have about 30 different industry, academic organizations and government partners by this summer. They also actively participate by making sure that the technologies created by our performers integrate into existing Soldier systems."

Hitt said ARL-HRED helps them to assess biomechanics and physiology while NSRDEC looks at the Warrior Web technology and makes sure it integrates with Soldier equipment such as body armor, communications gear and weapons systems.

During the first period of testing, known as Task A, researchers are exploring technologies to augment muscle work and increase Soldier capabilities. The team is addressing five key areas:

• Core injury mitigation
• Comprehensive analytical representations
• Regenerative kinetics
• Adaptive sensing and control
• Suit human-to-wearer interface

Last year, DARPA called on industry and academia for proposals to begin the second period of testing, or Task B.

"We received an incredible response and were very fortunate to have a huge pool of very competitive proposals," Hitt said. "Come this summer, we'll announce who we've selected for Task B. I think everybody will be very excited about the teams we've selected."

In the coming months, the team will explore additional wearable technologies not addressed in Task A. The goal will be to integrate "multiple mature component technologies into a system potentially wearable by 90 percent of the U.S. Army population, both male and female."

In September, ARL-HRED researchers will begin intensive testing of the next generation of prototypes.

"Every system will see six Soldiers over a course of three weeks," Hitt said. "ARL-HRED is responsible for that effort. If everything goes as it went last year, it's going to be an exciting event."

DARPA officials said while they are sharing research and findings with the U.S. Special Operations Command, Warrior Web is not part of the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, currently under development.

Warrior Web will soon get its final test.

"Thirty months from today, we will outfit a squad with our suits and we will compete against a squad without them in activities such as the 12-mile rucksack march, marksmanship and the obstacle course," Hitt said. "Our vision is to significantly reduce the time it takes to do a rucksack march and then when you get onto the marksmanship course, you're almost as fresh as if you hadn't marched at all."

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The Army Research Laboratory is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America's Soldiers.

The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness -- technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment -- to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.

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The Bayonet
Tuesday, May. 13, 2014

Special Operations Command leads development of 'Iron Man' suit
Donna Miles / American Forces Press Service
THE BAYONETrss
Tuesday, May. 13, 2014
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ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. - The U.S. Special Operations Command is using unprecedented outreach and collaboration to develop something special with revolutionary capabilities.
The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, is the vision of Navy Adm. William H. McRaven, SOCOM's commander. He challenged industry and defense representatives at a SOCOM conference in May 2013 to come up with the concepts and technologies to make the suit a reality. The goal is to offer operators better protection, enhanced performance and improved situational awareness.
McRaven spoke more recently at a February 2014 National Defense Industry Association Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict symposium, in Washington, D.C.

"The TALOS program is a collaboration of efforts," McRaven said. "We are teaming with 56 corporations, 16 government agencies, 13 universities, and 10 national laboratories and we are leveraging the expertise of leading minds throughout the country to redefine the state of the art in survivability and operator capability. "This innovative approach brings together the brightest minds in a national effort and we are already seeing astounding results in this collaboration. If we do TALOS right, it will be a huge comparative advantage over our enemies and give our warriors the protection they need in a very demanding environment."
Exactly what capabilities the TALOs will deliver is not yet clear, explained Michael Fieldson, SOCOM's TALOS project manager. The goal is to provide operators lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and super-human strength. Antennas and computers embedded into the suit will increase the wearer's situational awareness by providing user-friendly and real-time battlefield information.
Integrated heaters and coolers will regulate the temperature inside the suit. Embedded sensors will monitor the operator's core body temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, body position and hydration levels. In the event that the operator is wounded, the suit could feasibly start administering the first life-saving oxygen or hemorrhage controls.
Fieldson admitted that the analogy to the suit that the Tony Stark character wore in the "Iron Man" movies may be a bit of a stretch. The TALOS, for example, isn't expected to fly.
But beyond that, there's little that Fieldson - or anyone else at SOCOM - is ready to rule out.
In a departure from past practices of introducing new products piecemeal, adding bulk and weight to operators' kit, the TALOS will be a fully integrated "system of systems," Fieldson said. To offset the weight of computers, sensors and armor that make up the suit, operators will have an exoskeleton - a mechanism that carries the brunt of the load.
"The intent is to have this fully integrated system so you can provide the most capability at the lowest impact to the Soldier," Fieldson said. "We think there is some efficiency to be gained if all the equipment is fully integrated as opposed to different components that are simply assembled on the human."
Keeping the systems and the exoskeleton powered will require more than today's batteries can deliver. So along with the TALOS technologies, SOCOM is calling on the scientific and technical community to come up with reliable and portable power sources.
"We are really looking at stretching the bounds of science and technology," Fieldson said.
That's led SOCOM to reach out to partners within DOD as well as industry and academia for help in pushing today's technological limits.
The command is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, as well as U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, or RDECOM, centers like Natick, Mass., and the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Md., among other DOD organizations, to tap into projects already underway.
DARPA, for example, is making headway on its Warrior Web project, designed to boost troops' stamina and carrying capacity without sacrificing speed or agility. The concept includes a lightweight undersuit that would augment the efforts of the wearer's own muscles.
"Many of the individual technologies currently under development show real promise to reduce injury and fatigue and improve endurance," said Lt. Col. Joseph Hitt, DARPA's Warrior Web program manager. "Now we're aiming to combine them - and hopefully some new ones, too - into a single system that nearly every Soldier could wear and would provide decisive benefits under real-world conditions."
The Natick lab is busy identifying high-technology armor and mobility technologies with plans to integrate them into a first-generation TALOS system ready for demonstration by the end of June, reported Greg Kanagaki, project engineer for Natick's Unmanned Equipment and Human Augmentation Systems Team.
Natick personnel also are serving as subject-matter experts for the TALOS project, particularly in the areas of mobility, human performance and thermal management, Kanagaki said.
Meanwhile, RDECOM officials say their programs have a direct application to TALOS as well.
"(The) requirement is a comprehensive family of systems in a combat armor suit where we bring together an exoskeleton with innovative armor, displays for power monitoring, health monitoring, and integrating a weapon into that - a whole bunch of stuff that RDECOM is playing heavily in," said Army Lt. Col. Karl Borjes, the command's science adviser.
"RDECOM cuts across every aspect making up this combat armor suit," he said. "It's advanced armor. It's communications, antennas. It's cognitive performance. It's sensors, miniature-type circuits. That's all going to fit in here, too."
SOCOM has called on the private sector, too, inviting not just its traditional industry partners, but also those who have never before worked with the command, to participate in the TALOS program.
"There is no one industry that can build it," SOCOM's Senior Enlisted Advisor Army Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris said during a panel discussion at the command's MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., headquarters, as reported by the Defense Media Network.
The outreach has generated a lot of interest. SOCOM's TALOS planning session this past summer attracted representatives of 80 colleges, 10 universities and four national laboratories. At a demonstration in July, 80 companies demonstrated technologies ranging from advanced body armor, some using liquids that turn solid on impact, to power supplies to exoskeleton mechanisms.
SOCOM's goal, Fieldson said, is to have a TALOS prototype within the next year and to have the suit ready for full field testing within five years. That timetable is revolutionary for the military research, development and acquisition world, even for rapid-equipping programs.
As the only combatant command with acquisition authority, SOCOM is able to accelerate the TALOS project, Fieldson explained. The command's acquisition executive and research and development staff share a building at MacDill Air Force Base, which he said promotes close collaboration and speedy decision-making.
"We have access that is nontraditional and that absolutely helps us," Fieldson said. "We can bounce ideas back and forth against the leadership and ensure that what we are doing makes sense. I think that is critical to trying to develop this system within the timeline we are working toward."
Also, in a departure from traditional development projects, SOCOM's Acquisition Center staff established an innovation cell to lead the effort, advised by operators and focused on transforming business processes to solve the extreme integration challenges associated with TALOS.
"Because of the technical challenges and the compressed timeline, we are going to take more ownership on the government side than we typically take," Fieldson said.
"We are going to go in and make some decisions that we sometimes rely on industry partners to make for us," he said. "That allows us to reach out to a broader audience. That way, if there is a great idea in some nontraditional organization, we can integrate it" without relying on a commercial company to do so. "We are really changing the process," Fieldson said. "And the reason we are doing that is to try to streamline the overall effort and drive down both the cost and the schedule. That way, we get the best possible equipment to our force as quickly as possible."
Although the TALOS is initially intended for special operators involved in high-risk missions, it has implications for the conventional force as well, Fieldson said.
"We have a long history at SOCOM of developing things first and then the technology moving out to the broader force," he said. "We fully expect that to happen with this one as well. I think there will be a lot of spinoff technologies that the broader force will be able to use."
Meanwhile, McRaven remains the suit's No. 1 proponent.
"I'm very committed to this," he told industry representatives at a July planning forum. "I'd like that last operator that we lost to be the last operator we lose in this fight or the fight of the future. And I think we can get there."
Editor's note: Navy Capt. Kevin Aandahl, U.S. Special Operations Command, contributed to this article.

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