Sometimes publicity comes from unexpected places. Recently, an article in the May issue of Popular Science drew comparisons between a robotic suit being developed for military use and the title character in the movie “Iron Man”. As a result, Raytheon Company’s Exoskeleton, which has been in development since 2000, is now garnering a good deal of attention through its association with the blockbuster film.
In “Iron Man”, Robert Downey Jr.’s weapons designer Tony Stark creates a robotic suit with jet-propulsion boots, missile launchers and a control helmet. The suit gives him the strength of, well, a man made out of iron. While Raytheon’s Exoskeleton can’t fire missiles or propel a person into flight, the device does amplify human strength, agility and endurance. Built from a combination of sensors, actuators and controllers, the suit enables an individual to easily carry another person or lift 200 pounds several hundred times without breaking a sweat. And the suit is also flexible enough that a wearer can walk up steps or kick a soccer ball with ease.
Raytheon Company, a giant in the defense development field, is currently developing the Exoskeleton with millions of dollars in funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2000, DARPA began a seven-year, $75-million program called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation, where the agency recruited companies to build exoskeletons that met a series of goals. Those goals included enabling average soldiers to: lug hundreds of pounds, hike for days without fatigue, handle weapons that normally require two people, and remove injured individuals from a battlefield single-handedly. Of the teams competing in the challenge, Raytheon was the only one whose design was moved into the next stage of development.
The 150-pound Exoskeleton slides over the back of an individual (sort of like the loader Signourey Weaver used in another sci-fi film, “Aliens”) and shadows the wearer’s movements. The Exoskeleton operates by reading a person’s motions and interpreting what the wearer is trying to do. For example, when the operator moves an arm, the sensor in the handle detects the force of the individual’s movement and sends the information to the suit’s computer. The computer then calculates how to move the exoskeleton to minimize strain, and relays the instructions to the suit’s cylinder actuators (there are 30 actuators, each controlling a different joint), enabling movement. Of course, this whole process happens nearly as quickly as the operator moves.
Despite its impressive capabilities, Raytheon still faces a major obstacle in figuring out how to power the Exoskeleton. To meet DARPA’s standards, the suit needs to be powered for 4 to 24 hours from a lightweight, portable power supply. Currently, the Exoskeleton can only run for 40 minutes at a time on batteries or through an external power source. This issue is one of the reasons the Exoskeleton probably won’t be popping up on the battlefield anytime soon. It’s also one of the reasons “Iron Man” remains pure science fiction at this point.
Shad Connelly, Executive Editor – Invention & Technology News (http://news.inventhelp.com)
http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/technology/rtn08_exoskeleton/
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