Talos And Other Non Chinese Powered Exoskeletons

Equation

Lieutenant General
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and
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So does this mean we will be seeing more female Ranger or Special Forces qualified (meaning earning their badges after successfully completed all the training) troops in actual combat units? I believe so, because these exoskeleton will help a great deal in regards to carrying 80 lbs or more on their backs all the time.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Eventually... but Don't expect it before the end of this decade. Still have battery issues to solve. In the Mean time the best would be to try and Shave weight from gear where possible.

On a side Note Socom issued a Requirement for it's concept of a next gen Night vision scope for Snipers and It is pretty impressive and looking to add full color night vision, The ability to direct Air and Artillery strikes, Streaming video and more.
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Alot of this over laps the postings I made earlier. The Infantry Information age is coming.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
LEXO.jpg
DX Korea 2016: South Korean developers showcase exoskeleton systems
Kelvin Wong, Goyang-si, South Korea - IHS Jane's International Defence Review
09 September 2016
South Korea defence firms have unveiled a number of indigenously developed exoskeleton systems that could eventually enter service with the Republic of Korea Army (RoKA) at the DX Korea 2016 exhibition, which is being held at the KINTEX exhibition centre in Goyang-si, South Korea, from 7 to 10 September.

LIG Nex1 showcased its hydraulically powered LEXO military exoskeleton system, which increases an operator's strength and endurance by transferring the weight of heavy loads from the body. The system is comprised of a hydraulically actuated arm and backpack assembly as well as a hydraulic leg brace to improve mobility in difficult terrain and assist with lifting.

The system is also designed to be portable, with both units fitting into a ruggedised case for transport when not required.

A company engineer told IHS Jane's on 7 September that the LEXO exoskeleton has been in development since 2013 under a joint venture with the South Korean government, although he declined to disclose the identity of the partner. However, he noted that the company hopes to mature the technology for possible production around 2022.

While detailed specifications of the LEXO has not been disclosed, the engineer revealed to IHS Jane's that the system can support a maximum load of 90 kg and operate for up to four hours in its present state of development.

"The exoskeleton can enable a soldier to carry heavier weapons, such as man portable anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) launchers or mortars, for much longer periods of time as the wearer essentially feels no strain from the weight when the system is in operation," the engineer explained.

A longer term goal is to integrate powered exoskeleton technology with advanced soldier protection, sensors, and weapon systems under a future soldier combat system effort, although no timelines for this development were provided. However, one concept that LIG Nex1 is proposing at DX Korea is a soldier-launched "smart guided munition", with the soldier carrying a small imaging infrared (IIR) missile armed with an airburst warhead.
 

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LOL parts inside It’s ‘getting real’: Special Ops Iron Man suit takes shape
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It’s ‘getting real’: Special Ops Iron Man suit takes shape
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May 18, 2017 (Photo Credit: Jen Judson/Staff)
TAMPA, Fla. — The informally named “Iron Man” suit that U.S. Special Operations has been developing will start to come together over the next 18 months with a first prototype expected to be fully built by the end of 2018.

Formally known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, Special Operations Command has spent the past four years tackling complicated technical hurdles to try to revolutionize the performance of a dismounted operator by developing the armored exoskeleton.

“It’s getting very real right now,” Col. James Miller, the director of the Joint Acquisition Task Force TALOS, said Wednesday at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference.

The team of around 35 vendors, labs and academic institutions are diving deeper on systems engineering, he said, adding, “We are going to start building parts and snapping them together” while testing for functionality and safety.

Some skeptics have said the project is moving too slowly or that it's a waste of money to try to develop something only a reality in comic books and movies, akin to the Pentagon building a "Star Wars" Death Star. A few years ago, the suit even made its way into then-Sen. Tom Coburn's, R-Okla., famous "wastebook" among 100 federal programs he called wasteful.

But for Miller, getting TALOS right would be a revolutionary leap ahead achievement for the future special operator, not meant to be fielded in just a few years. “We are trying to redefine in many respects science and engineering,” he said.

“We are putting a human inside of a robot,” Miller said, which “has to emulate the human itself.”

The program isn’t tackling how to give back capability to someone who is impaired; it’s trying to take an elite athlete and super empower someone with that capability, James “Hondo” Geurts, USSOCOM acquisition executive told Defense News in an interview at SOFIC.

While SOCOM is trying to push the bounds with a full suit, there have already been “great spin-offs both in technology and in business practices,” along the way, he said.

TALOS program officials sat down with industry representatives by appointment for nearly 12 non-consecutive hours over the course of three-and-a-half day conference.

Each layer of the suit presents complicated technical challenges, and integrating all the layers is yet another challenge. Miller sees it as a "system of systems," like an aircraft or other major weapons platform.

Miller said the base layer of the suit needs to be capable of regulating the operator’s temperature and will have tubes incorporated into the layer delivering chilled water to keep an operator’s core from overheating. Also “junctional fragmentation” will be woven into the fabric to protect the operator where armor pieces won’t cover.

The exoskeleton’s purpose is to displace hundreds of pounds of weight and enhance body movement. It has to be perfectly form-fitting, “kinematically seamless with the body,” Miller said. The individual wearing it shouldn’t notice it’s there.

“If we get that right, then we are good,” he said, adding exoskeletons have been attempted in the past several decades, but some were so big they couldn’t fit through a door. That won’t work for special operators engaging in close-quarter combat, Miller added.

The 800-part exoskeleton is currently being built using carbon fiber plastics, which is strong enough to replicate and prove design, but not enough to be encumbering or too expensive, Miller said.

The program has used rapid 3-D prototyping as it refines the exoskeleton and has managed to cut what was expected to be a billion-dollar project “way back,” Miller said.

For now, the first prototype will be made of titanium, he said, which is lighter and stronger.

Building on the exoskeleton will be an electric actuation system to emulate muscles. The program will develop both upper- and lower-body actuation, Miler said, which is very hard to do, but both are needed.

The final layer of the suit is the armor. The military has mastered ballistic protection on the chest, back and head, but the legs, arms and face continue to lack appropriate protection, Miller said.

The suit can’t be completely armored head to toe because it would hinder movement too much, so positioning the armor is crucial. The current suit would likely have 26 pieces of armor.

The program is entertaining the idea of a removable mandible to cover the lower half of the face and is experimenting with ways to protect the entire face.

“The thing we haven’t gotten to yet is transparent ballistic material glass … that is not so thick you get [dizzy] and want to throw up all over the place,” Miller said.

The entire suit will be powered through a system on the back that is currently configured to use commercially available batteries. That method of power is limiting, but at least it’s not a suit that requires being plugged into the wall like experimental robotic suits of the past, Miller noted.

The power will not only control the suit but also a computer that processes a network of communications systems integrated into the helmet that feeds audio and imagery into some kind of head-up display, possibly at cheek-level, Miller said.

Much is left to be contemplated after the first prototype is built, and Miller stressed this is the first of many.

Questions have yet to be answered, such as how the suit could be employed operationally, how to get it to fit a variety of body types and how an operator would quickly get out of the suit if it broke down. Those would likely be answered once the science and technology piece ended and the program moved into an official program of record, according to Miller.
 

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It is not
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. It isn’t even Iron Fist. Lockheed Martin’s newest exoskeleton is more like Iron Leg. But for a soldier humping his weapons, ammo and body armor up a mountain in
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or a high-rise building in a
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, a device to take the load off would be welcome. And, unlike science fiction supersuits, we can build it now.....

One particularly persistent problem: weight. US foot troops have been overburdened since at least D-Day, where some men drowned in shallow water under their heavy packs. The problem has become especially acute since 9/11, with US troops in
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laboring to chase Taliban in flip-flops. The military is constantly looking at ways to make equipment lighter, but those improvements are mainly on the margins, a pound shaved here or there. It’s also experimenting with wheeled or tracked robots that can carry some of a squad’s equipment, but these robotic mules
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with nimble infantrymen over rough terrain.

So if you can’t lighten the soldier’s load, and you can’t take it off him, can you make him stronger? Nowadays, the answer is yes: We have the technology.

Soldier-load-slide-Screen-shot-2012-08-03-at-2.36.08-PM.png
....

How It Works

The Lockheed exoskeleton’s full and unwieldly designation is FORTIS Knee-Stress Relief Device (K-SRD), which makes it sounds like a piece of molded plastic your insurance would refuse to cover. In fact, it’s a sophisticated synthesis of multiple technologies:

  • a rigid load-bearing framework to transfer weight off the wearer to the ground;
  • compact actuators at the knee to increase strength (future models may add actuators at the hip as well);
  • soft materials that buffer between the human being and the rigid frame, helping translate analog human movements into digital signals to the actuators; and
  • an artificial intelligence that adjusts the machinery to move seamlessly with the wearer — unlike past earlier exoskeletons that often resisted the body’s natural movements.
“Can we have an up-armored solution that’s capable of breaching and entering and being relatively invulnerable to 7.62 AP (armor piercing) bullets at point-blank range? Yeah, we can do that,” said Maxwell. That said, it’d probably be heavy and slow, far from the flight-capable suit in the comics.

Iron Man has…hurt exoskeleton development,” Maxwell said, because it’s created impossible expectations — literally impossible, since the CGI suit in the movies routinely violates the laws of physics. When Iron Man drops from the sky to a neat three-point landing, in particular, the sudden deceleration would liquefy Tony Stark inside the suit.
New Lockheed Martin Exoskeleton Helps Soldiers Carry Heavy Gear
FORTIS K-SRDTM provides strength to go the distance

TAMPA, Fla., May 16, 2017 /
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/ -- Their demanding missions often require soldiers to carry heavy equipment packs long distances over rough terrain, or up and down stairs and underground infrastructure in urban environments. Exhaustion and injury are frequently a consequence of these challenging operational scenarios. A new exoskeleton from Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) offers a solution.



Using licensed DermoskeletonTM bionic augmentation technology, the FORTIS Knee Stress Release Device (K-SRD)TM is a computer-controlled exoskeleton that counteracts overstress on the lower back and legs and increases mobility and load-carrying capability. It boosts leg capacity for physically demanding tasks that require repetitive or continuous kneeling or squatting, or lifting, dragging, carrying or climbing with heavy loads.

"FORTIS K-SRD features military-specification batteries that are approved for infantry use, improved control box ergonomics and faster actuators that generate more torque," said Keith Maxwell, FORTIS program manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. "These system upgrades resulted from soldier feedback on the initial design."

Sensors on the exoskeleton report the soldier's speed, direction and angle of movement to an on-board computer that drives electro-mechanical actuators at the knees. The exoskeleton delivers the right torque at the right time to assist knee flex and extension. FORTIS K-SRD ultimately reduces the energy needed to cross terrain, squat or kneel. These benefits are most noticeable when ascending or descending stairs or navigating inclined surfaces.

Versions of the exoskeleton are also available for industrial workers and first responders who have to perform strenuous tasks in difficult environments.

"For any mission that combines heavy man-portable gear and climbing, FORTIS K-SRD can enhance strength and endurance," Maxwell said.

For additional information on Lockheed Martin's exoskeleton technology, visit our
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.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
mawashi uprise.png
Mawashi's Ultralight Passive Ruggedized Integrated Soldier Exoskeleton UPRISE
mawashi-uprise-tactical-exoskeleton-2.jpg
Notice anything missing? No battery
This is unpowered hence passive. It offers an advantage in Weight distribution and reduced fatigue but it reduces power to weight IE Speed.
This is a Canadian company named for the stiff belts worn by Sumo wrestlers the system supposedly been tested by SF forces. The Key reasoning for the Rise of Exosuits is the weight of the modern soldier. heavy loads place a human strain on a soldier. from bruising and chaffing to bone fractures. The biggest driver of this weight increase is body armor.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Army Tests New Super-Soldier Exoskeleton
The Army is testing an exoskeleton technology which uses AI to analyze and replicate individual walk patterns, provide additional torque, power and mobility for
(Photo: lockheed)



The Army is testing an exoskeleton technology which uses AI to analyze and replicate individual walk patterns, provide additional torque, power and mobility for combat infantry and enable heavier load-carrying, industry officials said.

Army evaluators have been assessing a Lockheed-built FORTIS knee-stress-release-device exoskeleton with soldiers at Fort A.P. Hill as part of a focus on fielding new performance enhancing soldier technologies.



Using independent actuators, motors and lightweight conformal structures, lithium ion battery powered FORTIS allows soldiers to carry 180 pounds up five flights of stairs while expending less energy.

“We’ve had this on some of the Army’s elite forces, and they were able to run with high agility carrying full loads,” Keith Maxwell, senior program manager, exoskeleton technology, Lockheed Martin..said.

Lockheed engineers say FORTIS could prove particularly impactful in close-quarters urban combat because it enhances soldier mobility, speed and power.

It is built with a conformal upper structure that works on a belt attached to the waist. The belt connects with flexible hip sensors throughout the systems. These sensors tell the computer where the soldier is in space along with the speed and velocity of the movements.

“We were showing a decrease in the metabolic cost of transport, the measure of how much energy is required to climb uphill,” said Maxwell.

FORTIS uses a three-pound, rechargeable BB-2590 lithium ion battery.

Developed by Lockheed with internal research and development funds, FORTIS is designed to help soldiers run, maneuver, carry injured comrades and perform a wide range of combat tasks while preventing hyperextension of the knee.

Engineers report that FORTIS reduces the amount of energy required to perform a task by nine percent, using on-board AI to learn the gait of an individual soldier. The system integrates an actuator, motor and transmission all into one device, intended to provide 60 Newton Meters of additional torque, Maxwell explained.

“It knows what you are trying to do when you are trying to do it,” Maxwell said.

“It locks and gives you a forward torque-twist that causes the lower leg to move toward the back, then it reverses direction to bring your leg forward,” he explained.

FORTIS is a next-generation effort intended to move beyond Lockheed’s previously designed HULC exoskeleton which weighs 85 pounds and restricts soldier mobility, developers said.

A recent, independently-funded University of Michigan study found that FORTIS does substantially enhance soldier mobility.
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Wanted: ‘Iron Man’ suits for special operations troops
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  10 hours ago
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posted in December.

Commonly dubbed an “Iron Man” suit, the announcement highlights TALOS’ role as part of a “long-term goal to develop technologies which can enhance SOF mission execution.”

“The intent is to accelerate the delivery of innovative capabilities to the SOF operator,” the announcement, which will remain open through December, states. “TALOS is an overarching vision to drastically improve the dismounted operator’s survivability and capability.”

This isn’t the first time the request has been pushed out, though. Back in
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, SOCOM made another broad agency announcement seeking TALOS suit prototypes, according to an Army news release.



“We sometimes refer to it as the Iron Man suit, frankly to attract the attention, imagination and excitement of industry and academia,” Michel Fieldson, then the TALOS lead, said in the release.

For this most recent announcement, the solicitation includes interest areas for contractors to focus on — such as technologies that minimize traumatic brain injury, reduce electromagnetic and acoustic signature, and protect against advanced rifle rounds.



“The vision provides a coordinating focus for many of [SOCOM’s] Science and Technology (S&T) efforts,” the announcement reads.

The tactical exoskeleton system outlined in the solicitation should be able to augment human strength, while maintaining operator mobility under heavy loads in an austere environment.

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“The capability areas include enhanced warfighter protection, improved situational awareness, increased mobility, advancements in battlefield power generation and storage, and modernized ground force communication and control,” the announcement reads. “Each capability is approached holistically to ensure system-level operational effectiveness for the SOF operator.”



Other areas of interest include a user-interface that can provide microwave doppler imaging, as well as the ability to capture sounds 360 degrees around the operator’s viewpoint and display the sound’s origin in azimuth and elevation.

In order to power this behemoth, SOCOM is hoping for a backpack-sized battery “capable of providing up to several kilowatts of clean DC power for multiple hours.”

Any power source submitted “should be less than 120VDC and not to exceed 600VDC, although short-term load peaks above this level are possible,” the announcement notes. “These technologies are necessary to provide an uninterrupted source of power to an untethered SOF operator.”



As far as who can submit proposals, the announcement reads that SOCOM is “interested in receiving concepts from all responsible sources from industry, academia, individuals, and government organizations capable of providing the design, development, and testing of TALOS-related technologies.”

Although it’s up to a would-be contractor to determine costs and timeline of development, the announcement recommends a limit of $5 million for development and 24 months to complete all efforts for each submission.
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