Army Exoskeleton Suit Gives Man Superhuman Strength | Hacker News Reader

Army Exoskeleton Suit Gives Man Superhuman Strength

singularityhub.com

31 pointskkleiner22 comments

This technology is already commercially available in Japan. (The focus is less on giving superhuman strength as to giving regular human strength to people who don't have it -- think disabled folks or 60-something construction workers being able to handle loads more appropriate to 20-something construction workers without risking severe injury.)

My previous employer had a team working on various robotics projects, and I was invited with them to a public presentation about related technologies by a few companies in the field. It involved their favorite two tech demos: having a skinny engineer pick up a young female presenter, and then having the young female presenter pick up a large bag of rice, both without noticeable effort. They also had a partially paralyzed man walk, thrown in as an omake. (I don't even know what you call that anymore. You know the "And if you order a large pizza we'll throw in a free small coke at no extra charge?" deals you hear all the time. The small coke is omake. Like, you know, healing the lame. Not worthy of a full bullet point by itself but as long as we have your attention we thought we'd slide it in there.)

I asked when it would be commercially available, figuring "Five to ten years in the future, right?" (+) and was told "Do you have a credit card on you?"

Some days I feel like I'm living in the future.

(+) I was attached to an AI project at the time. Like any good AI project, it will be available 5 to 10 years in the future, just like it has been for the last 30 years. Just like cost-competitive solar power. If you actually ship we AI researchers get peevish and drum your stupid little engineering trick out of the field.

> You know the "And if you order a large pizza we'll throw in a free small coke at no extra charge?" deals you hear all the time. The small coke is omake.

I'd call that an "added bonus", i think.

I work with a tech company that refers to this sort of bonus deliverable in a project as a "marshmallow." not sure why, they're Argentinian, so maybe it's a cultural thing?

It's pretty effing rad that their marshmallow for the presentation was having someone who is partially paralyzed walk.

FYI: http://www.nihongodict.com/w/66864/omake/

Please link me. I would kill to buy this for my grandfather.

My understanding is that they're not available for purchase overseas yet, although if you're in the EU you might be in luck in the not-too-distant future. FDA approval is probably going to take, well, five to ten years.

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/faq/index.html

(I love that they're called cyberdyne. Though I doubt they're so named because of the movie)

Without specific reference to a company called Cyberdyne or its flagship product HAL, I will note that Japan is the second biggest market in the world for Hollywood cinema, and leave it at that.

Anyone who thinks cultural diffusion is a one-way street should ask their friendly neighborhood biologist what a sonic hedgehog is.

Hm, actually I said that because the first time I read Cyberdyne I just thought it was something Orwellian, and used the powers of Google to realize it was from Terminator.

(And I'm too young to have seen any movies with HAL in them ;))

Well, their robot suit is called HAL. Does that change your mind at all?

I certainly would stay away from a robot suit called 'HAL', knowing that it would kill me when it senses that I try to power it off.

The new HAL from Cyberdine, now available with Cylon technology!

Be sure to purchase our Dalek-class gurantee, which allows for premium warranty service and automatic through our Skynet infrastructure!

Wouldn't it be nice not to have robots replace us, but instead make us better at what we do?

This is like Power Armor in Fallout 3!

I want one.

Ok, so maybe the comment wasn't constructive, but isn't that what you all think when you watch the video?

Oh well. I'll try to make up for it!

One of the reasons this seems so awesome to me is that it could replace the forklift, winch, pulley, or any given lifting/pulling/etc. based device. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just lift something and carry it, rather than loading it onto a forklift and then driving the forklift? It's a much more intuitive and easy system.

Center of Mass (or just sheer bulk) would surely become an issue though.

Just because I can lift 1000kg of heavy material - doesn't mean that I can life a big box that weight without tipping over. (Obviously you could make the suit incredibly heavy - like say as heavy as a forklift - but it would become pretty inefficient to try and move around)

Two people.

Ins't there a risk that the exoskeleton produces muscular atrophy?

I'd imagine the Army would still require its soldiers to do physical training without the suit. Commercial applications would start where atrophy is a moot point--like for the elderly and disabled, in Japan.

You could also avoid atrophy by forcing the person to a base level of work. Basically, you do all the work to start and then the machine takes over once you are lifting 10 pounds, so 50 pounds might feel like 15, and 100, like 20. Not only would this prevent atrophy, but it would also extend battery life.

Do a system that could work in "reverse", like the whole body workout gear Bork used at his sister's house in "Brother Death".

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