Army Reveals Robotic Suit

May 19th, 2008

Ok, so we’ve seen these robotic suits before, but they’ve usually come from Japan or some other foreign local. Sarcos, located in Salt Lake City has been developing a 150-lb robotic suit that gives its wearer super hero like strength (up to 20x human strength). Sarcos, who was recently purchased by Raytheon a few years ago, is under a two year, $10 million contract with the US Army. The US Army claims the suits will be used for unloading heavy supplies and performing other heavy duty laborious activities, but I think we all know that these will emerge on the battlefield as soon as technically viable.

Previous iterations of these suits have always been slow to react to the user’s actions. According to Sarcos, they’ve overcome this challenge by pairing super-fast microprocessors with sensors that detect movement. In one demonstration the suit moved almost as fast as its human counterpart, but climbing stairs appeared to be more Frankenstein than human.

When will you be able to try out the suit? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, it’s damn cool.

More info here.

Entry Filed under: Robots