TJ @ 13-06-2008
Human augmentation and science fictional brilliance collide with real life in the HULC - the Human Universal Loads Carrier. According to sales-jabber from the Berkeley Bionics website:
The Human Universal Load Carrier (HULCâ„¢) is the third generation exoskeleton system from Berkeley Bionics. It incorporates the features of ExoHikerâ„¢ and ExoClimberâ„¢, exhibiting two independent characteristics:
1) It takes up to 200 pounds without impeding the wearer (Strength Augmentation)
2) It decreases its wearer’s metabolic cost (Endurance Augmentation).
Like most people I’m ambivalent about the idea of a runaway military industrial complex, but aside from the military applications this sort of technology has a lot of applications for paraplegics and the disabled. Check out the video for more corporate propaganda and quasi-transhumanist possibilities:
Fans of Iain M Banks’ wonderful Player of Games will be fully aware of the dark side of exoskeletal systems. My bet is it’ll be about 10 years before these are available to consumers: and will probably be expensive, heavily regulated and licensed when they are.
[via Gizmodo]
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Paul Raven @ 11-01-2008
Usually, when we hear about some new technological prototype that’s seemingly stepped off of the page of a science fiction story, it’s the military that always seems to get first dibs on the new toys.
So how refreshing to read this story about the robotic exoskeleton power-suit that a team at the University Of Tokyo have developed … specifically to boost the strength of Japan’s ageing farmers. [Image borrowed from linked article]
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Paul Raven @ 28-11-2007
It’s not quite the loader that Ripley uses to ass-kicking effect in Aliens, but it’s a (mechanically augmented) step in the right direction. A robotics startup called Sarcos has been demoing a prototype robotic exoskeleton that mimics the movements of its human operator while amplifying his (or her) strength. Don’t rush off to your local recruiting station just yet, though - Sarcos estimates a five year development process before the suit is ready to rock. There’s a video if you want to click through on the link, by the way. [Via OhGizmo!][Image lifted from linked article]
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Paul Raven @ 09-08-2006
A Japanese man who has been paralysed from the neck down for two decades has fulfilled his dream of ascending the Breithorn mountain in Switzerland - by being carried on the back of his buddy, who was kitted out with a HAL ‘robot-suit’ exoskeleton that increases the strength of its wearer by up to 80%. The HAL’s inventor plans to develop the system further, with the goal of enabling more disabled persons to fulfill ambitions otherwise inaccessible to them. Now this proof-of-concept is loose outside the military domain, we can expect to see a lot more devices like it in the coming years.
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