HULC - exoskeleton by Lockheed Martin

[Vation]

Do not say i want oe for shopping with my wife to carry all the stuff she buys(joking).

HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) is an exoskeletal human enhancement system developed by Lockheed Martin, intended to help soldiers carry a load of up to 200 pounds at a top speed of 10 miles per hour[1]. The system was announced at the AUSA Winter Symposium on February 26, 2009

morre on wiki:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulc]Hulc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kat8I5UM_Vs"]YouTube- Lockheed Martin HULC Exoskeleton[/ame]

Lockheed's Press release
Lockheed Martin Unveils Exoskeleton Technology at AUSA Winter Symposium | Lockheed Martin

products site(with more videos, screenshots, etc:
HULC | Lockheed Martin


Edit there are also others- SARCOS

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ4J69EEpu4"]YouTube- SARCOS half human half robot[/ame]

producer/researcher site:
http://www.sarcos.com

BIG PICTURE reading for exoskeletons:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton[/ame]

[shadowww]

Its quite hard for me to describe you unpleasent mix of my emotions after I saw 1:26 in the first video and 1:53 in the second. Its mix of anger, disgust, pity, sorrow and shame to describe it with only 5 words which comes first to my mind.

There is certainly no way this can be used for making someone happy? Like, helping the people with various muscle/bone related problems/diseases, invalids, old people, or for aid at hard physical jobs?

Nah, lets better invent and use new technology to make a person more efficient at killing other people. Its cooler.

[slikrapid]

interesting inventions, unfortunately they are military funded & will be used in military actions - anyone noticed the speaker mentioned afghanistan as an example of its application possibilities and btw the aggressive intro music (likely not by mistake of their marketing team) gave a hint of what its all about

[kelly]

There is certainly no way this can be used for making someone happy? Like, helping the people with various muscle/bone related problems/diseases, invalids, old people, or for aid at hard physical jobs?

.

I agree to it. There's much more thing to be done then just flexing you military prowess. No doubt , it's remarkable invention when viewed from Scientific perspective.But will it be really helpful to a person who is medically in need of it?
I would be more happy if the same could be used for persons having physical defects .

[Vation]

Non military usage examples:

Exoskeleton as a precise Forklift, just like we saw it in Alien or Avatar.
Exoskeleton for building industry - building construction.
Exoskeleton for mining.
Exoskeleton for fireman/police to get you out of burning house, crashed car those are also possibilities.
Heavy gear for for example near volcano research - carrying you, equipment and large protective gear.
Runnig for large distances in worse than off road environment with exoskeleton might be possible(wild terrain exploration). Or just like Nordic walking.

Also exoskeleton designs and patents will also affect prosthetic inventions - making synthetic body parts for disabled/injured or even replacing flesh with synthetic upgrades.

Exoskeleton as a battle gear is also old concept. Iron man comics in 60's .Troops in old star wars movie were wearing strange armors - maybe Lucas original idea was about something like that, remember Cyberpunk 2013 game in late 80's mentioned those before even being renamed to Cyberpunk 2020. Terminator movies are also sign of it coming. Predator armor. Intelligent armor design in US army. Fallout, Mass effect, Avatar movie - mech like exoskeleton... and many other i missed...