July 8, 2014
The U.S. Military is partnering with various companies and universities to develop Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS), an advanced Iron Man-style suit to protect and propel U.S. troops and provide them wth augmented strength and 'greater ballistic protection'.
"The broad goals are to provide operators with lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and beyond-optimal human performance," TALOS Team officials said. "Antennas and computers embedded into TALOS will increase the wearer's situational awareness by providing user-friendly and real-time battlefield information."
The suit could change the way the US military fights wars. To build the suit, the military turned to Legacy Effects, which is famous for making suits for Iron Man, Avatar, Real Steel, and Pacific Rim, among others. Legacy Effects is now at work on making pieces for prototypes using 3D printing, as the first step to the creation of an advanced military uniform. Other developers include Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Raytheon. Three options for the future soldier protective equipment made from 3D printers have been presented to the generals in the Pentagon and are currently under testing.
"When you're doing something for a movie it is all make-believe," Legacy founder Lindsay MacGowan tells the Wall Street Journal. "Whereas, for the military, that's really not going to be the case."
"We are trying to be revolutionary," said Mike Fieldson, the military's manager of the project. Industry engineers have been invited to participate in the 2014 TALOS Rapid Prototyping. The original plan is that the final version must be selected and put into production in 2018.
According to Journal, the iron-man suit weighs as much as 400 pound (181 kg), among which, 365 pounds of that need to be batteries. It is impossible for a soldier to be agile with it, but light-weight, low-bulk power generation is not currently a reality, experts said.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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Racketeering and such, nothing new there. They want to waste billions on products that won't even live up to concept arts, let alone be of actual use. So much waste in defense spending.
Jeff wrote at 7/8/2014 7:08:03 PM:
"....the final version must be selected and put into production in 2018. .......suit weighs as much as 400 pound (181 kg), among which, 365 pounds of that need to be batteries. It is impossible for a soldier to be agile with it, but light-weight, low-bulk power generation is not currently a reality, ...." Typical government. They can write all the deadlines and demands they want into bills, requests for quotes, proposals and laws, but reality is not affected. They will pour billions into this project, and we will likely get powered prothstetics that are better than current, but it will be quite a ways down the road befroe we see this stuff on a battlefield.
lass wrote at 7/8/2014 11:03:02 AM:
plenty of usa military stuff ends up being makebelieve in terms of practicality. they've been supposed to get google glass style heads up displays for the grunts since the early '90s. popsci etc magazines run articles like that every year and millions end up being put down on it.. like intel had a liquid cooled backpack computer in the late '90s for it..
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