Creating a Working Prototype of Armor to Move with You

[Krishna Bharadwaj G]

instead of going for armors and all that stuff,which in some ways may bitter the relations between different countries,i guess there are far more important issues to be addressed.
after this tsunami disaster,thought of the ways in which these quakes could be predicted well in advance?
happy new year.

 

[zesban]

Krishna, you obviously have your priorities straight by focusing on saving human lives. Please remember that this thread is for the discussion of developing power armor and a separate thread should be started for the discussion of that technology and field of science, geophysical studies I believe.

Regardless, a suit like this would help even with the tsunami disaster. With the amplified strength and the environmental enclosure the suit could traverse the flood waters with ease and allow aid workers to clear rubble and other debris with astonishing speed and agility. The precision of a human touch with the strength of a machine could navigate collapsed buildings and other dangerous areas to get to survivors hanging on the brink of life.

It could help carry supplies to remote regions faster than even typical vehicles could, helping to restore order, prevent rampant disease, and feed the hungry. The presence of such equipment would assist in maintaining order as well. The benefits of a suit like this are obvious even in peacetime.

 

[SkepticJ]

Two words: centaur truck

 

[owen13599]

All you are doing is playing a game with yourself.

 

[SkepticJ]

All you are doing is playing a game with yourself.

What are you talking about? You'll need to say more than that if you want to tell somebody something. It seems their might be a few people who have posted in this thread who aren't taking physics into account but this is no reason why engineers can't create robotic suits someday. It's not like mythical magical phenomena have to be invoked to make it work.

 

[shashwat]

Parts fast enough?

Actually, the real problem would be speed.
With all the parts moving, you would need them to be speed multipliers.If you use levers to move the parts(I'm not an engineer), then the Mechanical Advantage will be less than 1. The person inside will have to apply a lot of force. Nobody will agree to wear the armor anyway.

 

[shashwat]

I'm talking about a layer made purely out of nanobots, they wouldn't have to move anywhere.

Why not have a layer of steel. Its stronger.

 

[gramero]

I work for a company that is building the engines that may power the prototype exoskeletons. Small horsepower, light weight turbine engines.

Check out the prototype suits.

http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/bleex.htm

 

[zesban]

If you use elctro-mechanical actuators then there are no moving parts. It's just like human muscle. Carbon nano-fiber has this property but is far stronger and more resilient. Check out the previously links I've posted.

 

[SkepticJ]

If you use elctro-mechanical actuators then there are no moving parts. It's just like human muscle. Carbon nano-fiber has this property but is far stronger and more resilient. Check out the previously links I've posted.

I did a little more research on nanotube muscles and it's seems they don't contract at twice the speed of human muscle only expand. They contract at 1/10th the speed of human muscle. But they still are two orders of magnitude stronger than human muscle. Well that's if this is true anyway--> http://www.physorg.com/news2577.html

 

[zesban]

"While the carbon nanotube muscles can exceed the performance of natural muscle by generating a hundred times the force and elongating twice as fast, the contraction is less than one-tenth that of natural muscle."

It sounds like what they mean is that the tubes provide these forces, but they don't pull in as far as a human muscle would. So when contracting to produce this force, they only shrink down a tenth of an inch in size rather than one inch in size on a comparable ratio.

Perhaps they could use an exterior lining that does shrink like the human muscles do so that the suit still moves with the pilot, but have the carbon nanotubes assist in the actual work while the lining assists in the movement. Perhaps that's why they're examining the polymer muscles, to create a hybrid that capitalizes on the benefits of both. We will see. Thanks for the info!

 

[SkepticJ]

Why not have a layer of steel. Its stronger.

Steel is heavy, the suit needs to be as light as it can be while also being strong.

Possible good materials to build the armor and frame of are metal glass, titanium or alloys of it, spider silk composites(silk is being worked on right now), carbon nanotube composites, good old graphite composites, glass microsphere composites and aramid composites.

 

[SkepticJ]

"While the carbon nanotube muscles can exceed the performance of natural muscle by generating a hundred times the force and elongating twice as fast, the contraction is less than one-tenth that of natural muscle."

It sounds like what they mean is that the tubes provide these forces, but they don't pull in as far as a human muscle would. So when contracting to produce this force, they only shrink down a tenth of an inch in size rather than one inch in size on a comparable ratio.

Hmmm, you might be right, they worded it poorly if so. They should have said the muscle contracts at 1/10th the speed; but why doesn't the article say they elongate and contract a 2X human muscle speed? Why don't you e-mail them and get an anwser? Or I could but I don't feel like it.

 

[LURCH]

Solution seems simple; if the artificial muscle contracts 1/10^th the distance but 100x the force of human muscle, one could attach the artificial muscle to a lever that amplifies the range of motion 10x's, and still have 10x's the strength, no?

 

[zesban]

That is true, but again it would be better to avoid moving parts, as they are prone to breakage. I think that's why they're examining the uses of other polymer muscles. These muscles more close mimic the movement of human muscles and may provide the answer if used properly. I may just email them.

 

[dragonpowered]

ok i have another question. why not build the entire suit out of composites. it would be lighter and many times stronger than steel. also all anyone seems to see as a really big obstacle is the financial side of developement. well if you were developing nanobots to reapair the suit then why not use them to build it too? as to the support structures i meant things like where they are stored what will deploy them(like the dropship in aliens and the "coffins" in starship troopers). also is the armour going to be more like a knight of the 15th century where you had to have help to put it on or can we make it like a suit. step into it, zip it up,and the nanobots stiffens certain parts to absorb impact. what could be simpler?

 

[dragonpowered]

oh another thing, has anyone thought of using the suits in space?

 

[brewnog]

step into it, zip it up,and the nanobots stiffens certain parts to absorb impact. what could be simpler?

What could be simpler indeed!

Technology like this is so far down the line that when it becomes available, the need for humans being suited up like this would be completely superfluous.

Nice brainstorming though...

 

[dragonpowered]

ok so the the technology is farther down the road but still the question remains. will it be hard to "suit up" or will the suit be like wearing clothes?meaning that it is relatively easy to "suit up" on your own.

 

[dragonpowered]

hey guys check this out http://neogentronyx.com/content/view/20/43/ its really awesome. of course it is a bit taller than we were discussing.

 

[Kulaman]

WARNING! this post may possibly be a waste of your time.

Hello guys, I've been keeping track of where this topic has been going for almost a year now, and finally decided I wanted to post, as this is a topic near and dear to my heart (I'm a Warhammer 40,000 player), and if you look to Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries and the Elemental 'Mech you'll see a perfect example of what I think we are looking for. Well anyway, I was just looking back at an earlier post of yours zesban and i think that ZTA-96 Zirconia Toughened Alumina would probably be a better material for this application than AmAlOx 68 Alumina. well, I hope I didn't waste your time with this post
*edit*
i just remembered a wonderful metal my father told me about one time, Berylium i think it was. if what he told me is true, we could build say, a car engine, and include 5% berylium in alloy, it wouldn't need oil, period. granted, berylium isn't exactly cheap if i remember correctly, so it probably wouldn't really be cost efective here, it was just a thouht

 

[Kulaman]

i really hate to see this topic fall so deep in the back logs... (i'm not normally one to double post but...) unfortuantly i don't have any more to add right now, other than a bump and a prayer... lol i also wish i could delete that stupid title i put on my last post...

 

[rhinovirus]

i just remembered a wonderful metal my father told me about one time, Berylium i think it was. if what he told me is true, we could build say, a car engine, and include 5% berylium in alloy, it wouldn't need oil, period. granted, berylium isn't exactly cheap if i remember correctly, so it probably wouldn't really be cost efective here, it was just a thouht

Yeah my materials lecturer has told me how great the stuff is and how widely used it would be...if it were not for the fact that 1 in 7 people are fatally alergic to the stuff.

 

[SaMx]

IMO, a "Mech Warrior" or "Gundam" type thing would be completely superfluous, especially for urban warfare. You have something that cannot enter a building, and isn't going to be any faster or better armed than a tank (probably slower and with lighter armament). Plus, if it's that big, is there any reason to make it human shaped, or even give it legs? Legs give you the advantage of being able to handle rough terrain, but in a city you already have paved streets. Plus, a human is relatively tall and narrow, which means that it would be easy to knock over. And legs are less efficient than wheels or treads. The only scale at which powered armor is feasible is about human sized. Think Master Chief from Halo, not Mech Warrior.

 

[Kulaman]

okay, okay.(master chief's armor doesn't give him that strength, he has that from implants) Think the Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000 then. their armor makes them about 30% larger than a human, with broad soled "boots" giving them a lot of stability.

 

[zesban]

Wow, it's nice to see this post is still alive. Well I was recently discussing this very topic with my cousin and he brought something up that I was not entirely aware of. As it turns out Carbon Nano Fiber is very tough, but it is also very brittle, not supple as I previously thought. That is to say is does not bend well, which precludes it from my no moving parts idea. As such I'll have to start from scratch in locating an acceptible power amplifier for the suit.

As for the wear of the suit, I'd put it roughly between wearing Plate Mail and wearing a Deep Dive Suit. Ofcourse, the weight would be off set by the assistance the suit provides. The idea though is to keep it low profile enough that the soldier can navigate an urban environ without much impedance.

 

[rhinovirus]

Lots of interesting posts, lots of talk about materials and power sources, but not much in the way of control systems. I think this would be the 3rd major hurdle to overcome, after power and materials. To make the most of the suit, I think most of you would agree that it would sense the movement of the wearer and react to that rather than some sort of joystick and buttons configuration. Is it possible to develop a control system that allows the suit to react immediately and precisely? One of the possible dangers is the control system malfunctions or misjudges your movements and reacts in such away that, for example, it breaks the wearers arm.

FutureRNS had the interesting suggestion of intercepting signals from muscle-controlling neurons:

4)Control system. It would be imposible to move your leg forwards, so no pressure plates would work. But I think I found interesting solution. When you move your arm or leg your brain sends a neuro signal for muscle. Everything is like with a fiber that is developed already. So you could intercept these signals and produse into electronical signals. This way power armor wouldn't be a suit it would be extension of human body.

I forsee a problem with this "extension of human body" idea. You can walk about quite freely and agilely because of the balancing mechanism in your ears, but also because you personally have a feeling for your own weight and mass distribution. You'd be controlling the suit as if it was just your body, but the dynamics of the armour would be vastly different - you'd have x amount more weight and it would be distributed differently, you'd end up over/under-compensating and generally falling over lots. You would require some sort of feedback system to give the wearer a feel for their 'new' body. As a revision of FutureRNS's idea you could send information back into the wearers brain, letting them actually feel the armour as if it was skin/muscle/bone, but I can't see that sort of technology being available anytime soon.

Just some thoughts.

rhinovirus

 

[zesban]

It is true that the control system would be vital in the operation of such a suit. But I think we're on two separate paths here.

What I would envision is an active assistance system whereas it seems the one you suggest is passive. While the passive would eventually be a better system, I think at first we should look to the suit to only offer assistance on certain tasks. That way we have less interpretation to leave up to the control system.

Some tasks would include lifting, climbing, jumping, and running. Because your soldier is not constantly engaged in these activities the suit would not be engaged. When it came time to perform one of these activities only then would it kick into assist by providing extra leverage to a limited range of arm and leg movements.

Additionally the suit would have to support a good amount of it's own structure, taking the burden off of the wearer. Otherwise it would be self-defeating as we're trying to increase battlefield endurance, not encumber it. Thus the lighter materials are more preferable.

Another benefit of starting with this system would be that power consumption is lowered thus easing the initial power requirements, making it easier to develop such a suit. This is because the suit would not be engaged and with proper power management would have an increased operation window.

In addition it would be recommended that the soldier be trained on how to use the suit and how to move with it, much like any other heavy armor training. From there we could eventually evolve a passive assistance suit that is always assisting its wearer. And we would have real world data and countless hours of training and feedback to provide better information for it's development than what we could possibly speculate.

With such a suit the control system would be easier to design for because we're choosing to limit the capabilities in the initial designs. Without having to account for as much of the dynamic positioning that the human body is capable of, we can focus on better developing the control of the functions we do implement.

It may even be more reasonable to only focus on static position functions at first such as just lifting and maybe assisting only the upper body in certain climbing exercises. The idea is to start by focusing on a small range of movement and designing for that scenario and then integrating larger ranges in each design iteration.

 

[glondor]

Thought I would bring this one back to life with some new developments.

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/reuters/3369-alien-exoskeleton-for-us-army-video.htm

 

[russ_watters]

That's cool, but it doesn't really change the focus of the discussion: Due to power requirements, I doubt this will ever be feasible for a soldier to wear in combat.

 

[glondor]

Was not trying to change focus, only update some new developments I came across.")

 

[TheRyan]

Too bad James Bond's magnetic bullet deflection built into a watch was proven ineffective on MythBusters, otherwise that technology could have made one sweet kind of electromagnetic body armor. How about Iron Man? That's a kind of mechanical body armor that moves with you, and we all know from the trailers how awesome it could be. If only that stuff worked in real life as it did in the movies...

 

[Zogie]

For the problem of power you could use a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or a radioisotope generator. Obviously both of these would have huge problems with radioactive contamination, and cooking the "occupant", and nether are that efficient, but you wouldn't have to re-fuel for a good 50 years :)

 

[Wetmelon]

I don't know if anyone has shown this video yet, but here it is:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1556743/exoskeleton_turns_humans_into_terminators/

 

[AlexES16]

You could work for Sarcos they have an functional exo-eskeleton.

Watch this