XOS Exoskeleton

Subject: XOS Exoskeleton Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:54 am

April 11, 2008 - Popular Science has put together a rather sweet article tying the ongoing marketing blitz for Iron Man to a look at where real world exoskeleton technology stands. The focal point of the story is Ratheon's XOS exoskeleton, a suit the company is apparently accurate in describing as the most advanced yet assembled. A product of Darpa funding much like the BigDog quadraped robot, the XOS is the brainchild of Steve Jacobsen, a robotics engineer relatively new to designing products for the military, and fortunately so. His abilities to engineer and integrate discrete, yet vitally important solutions ranging from hydraulic valves, to complex algorithms and operating software in-house are apparently the key to the XOS' lead over other exoskeleton concepts.

XOS Exoskeleton Ratheondebutsxosexoskello6

XOS Exoskeleton Ratheondebutsxosexoskello6

The XOS exoskeleton weighs 150-pounds by itself, yet it adds no resistance to the movement of the operator. This feature, and the programming and engineering from which it's derived, is in fact the most advanced aspect of the exoskeleton's design. The machine follows the intended movement of the operator by polling contact points between the XOS and the human pilot thousands of times a second so as to never drag against intended motion.

The result is the XOS' ability to allow its pilot to move fluidly while lifting heavy loads, like 200-pound ammo canisters, with almost no physical fatigue for as long as the suit has power. Unfortunately, that power issue still needs a few breakthroughs, as the current XOS prototype (the fourth constructed by Jacobsen) will only function for 40-minutes on battery power alone.

According to Popular Science, the military may begin field testing a tethered version of the XOS as early as next year. That's impressive, as exoskeletons have always seemed like one of those technologies destined to be perpetually just 5-years away from working but never actually getting there.

http://au.gear.ign.com/articles/866/866151p1.html

XOS Exoskeleton

XOS Exoskeleton

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