 Real Life Powered Armor?, The Sammys are coming...! |
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 Apr 13 2005, 07:22 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 292 Joined: 24-September 04 Member No.: 6,701  |
Stumbled upon this. As this thing gets lighter and lighter, how long before someone decides to start putting it inside a body...?
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Apr 13 2005, 09:17 PM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 269 Joined: 8-November 04 Member No.: 6,817 |
Ah yes, I saw that one in a magazine some days back. So, why don't they build superpowered ones and attach some armorplates?
I want the best powerarmors humanity has to offer, and I want them here and I want them now! |
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Apr 13 2005, 09:22 PM
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#3
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,066 Joined: 5-February 03 Member No.: 4,017 |
First you need to get the public to accept the benefits of powered exoskeletons. Once those are accepted, then you can work on the battlearmor without as much suspicion or chance of loosing funding. There's also the little problem with getting enough power and armor into a portable package that the net gain is worth the costs, but that can be solved with research (in theory).
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Apr 13 2005, 09:26 PM
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#4
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Don't forget the all important item, figure out some way to afix water-wings for when he accidentally steps into a swamp and/or swimming pool. ;) |
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Apr 13 2005, 09:56 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 292 Joined: 24-September 04 Member No.: 6,701 |
Superpowered - By this, I assume you mean motorized actuators that can sustain more than the 40 kilos that the proto-type HAL5 (in the article) are proposed and/or can move faster. The main reason why we won't see this anytime soon are limitations of the motors and the power supply. Armor - Weight. If/when armor plates do show up, they'll probably be variants of the existing carbon-fiber synthetics, which even by today's standards, can be fashioned fairly hard and feather light. Their main issue is their expensive to make/maintain. Power - Any kind of application other than replacing human mobility (ie, military, industrial, shadowrunning :D) would run into the issue of power. Batteries are heavy and quite frankly, don't hold that much power, when you're talking about industrial or military-scale power. If such a suit comes to past right about now (ie, within the next 10 yrs or so), it'd likely use gas/desiel; that gives you a lot more power, but now you have heat and exhaust issues to deal with. "Future-tech", we'd likely see something along the lines of multi-junction solar cells, hydrogen fuel cells, or something else not available today. Weaponry - Hey, we all know we want to see it. The US military in Iraq/Afganistan is already arming UAVs, drones, ground robots, etc to do dangerous work. Once the armor issue is taken care of, you know it'll only be a matter of time before someone asks why not mount a weapon. Issues there would be recoil, accuracy, heat, etc, none of which sound that insurmountable. A decent gyroscope setup (see the Segway as an example) would help the first one. |
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Apr 14 2005, 01:39 AM
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#6
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,073 Joined: 23-August 04 Member No.: 6,587 |
what surprised me as the listed price.
Under 20 grand (US I assume) makes these a dammed good buy. I would have expected the first commercial models to be closer to 50. Edward |
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Apr 14 2005, 06:43 AM
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#7
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Target Group: Members Posts: 22 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 385 |
You make it sound like a military version isnīt already in development =)
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/ehpa.htm |
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Apr 14 2005, 07:49 AM
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#8
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,088 Joined: 8-October 04 From: Dallas, TX Member No.: 6,734 |
An outgrowth of that - actuators that help stabilize aiming/allow ameteurs to be nearly as good as professionals. Smartlink, anyone?
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/cha...proj_umich.html It is interesting to read the language in this... |
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Apr 14 2005, 07:59 AM
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#9
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,073 Joined: 23-August 04 Member No.: 6,587 |
Strength and endurance augmentation is easily done but how do they manage a speed augmentation.
Edward |
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Apr 14 2005, 08:07 AM
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#10
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 437 Joined: 11-April 05 Member No.: 7,318 |
Ditto. And if you can go that far, at that price, today.. Well, pour more money into the mix and I'm certain that better materials are already available on the market. I took note of the mention of increased range as one of the parameters on the military project. This means they are comfortable with a portable powersource that lasts longer than a normal human can travel without getting tired. |
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