TALOS Suit Expected to Be Tested This Summer

The US Army is working to develop “groundbreaking” smart armor that would give its troops “phenomenal assets”.

It is calling on the knowledge industry, government labs and the academic world to help shape the Iron Man-style suit.

Other exoskeletons that permit soldiers to carry big loads much further have already been tested by the army.

The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (Talos) would have such a frame but would also have coats of nifty materials fitted with sensors.

The suit would also need to have wide-area networking and a wearable computer comparable to Google Glass, the US Army said.

Upsurge strength

It should be made of clever material fitted with sensors to monitor body temperature, heart rate and hydration levels.

“The requirement is a comprehensive family of systems in a combat armour suit where we bring together an exoskeleton with innovative armour, displays for power monitoring, health monitoring, and integrating a weapon into that,” said Lt Col Karl Borjes, a science counselor at the US Army’s exploration, development and engineering command.

The exoskeleton, which could be committed to arms and legs, would be likely to use hydraulics to greatly rise strong points.

“It’s unconventional armour. It’s communications, antennas. It’s intellectual performance. It’s sensors, miniature-type circuits. That’s all going to fit in here, too,” he added.

Magnetic field

According to US Army Sgt Maj Chris Faris, “no one industry can build it”.

Instead the army is calling on research and development organizations, private industry as well as government labs and academia to support the project.

The US Army said it was likely that scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would be involved in the project.

An MIT team is currently developing liquid body armour – made from fluids that transmute into a solid when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied.

Outsized robot

In an interview with US news site NPR, MIT professor Gareth McKinley compared the space-age armor to that seen in Hollywood films.

“The other kind of things that you see in the movies… would be the kind of external suit that Sigourney Weaver wears in Aliens, where it’s a large robot that amplifies the motions and lifting capability of a human.” , he said.

“It sounds exactly like Iron Man.”

The aim is the get the Talos armour out in the field within three years

Reference Link: http://www.dcclothesline.com/2013/10/11/u-s-military-creating-iron-men-super-soldiers-terminator-robots-fight-future-wars/

Images was from: livescience.com

Knowledgeable Facts About the TALOS Suit

It probably won’t have Tony Stark’s jetpack or his Google Glass-like processer, but engineers at the U.S. Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) are occupied on an Iron Man-like set of body armor for Special Ops fighters.

The body armor, called the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit or TALOS, is scheduled for a demonstration with the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) on Nov. 19 at the MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, according to a report by the Defense Media System.

SOCOM Chief William McRaven said that TALOS is one of his big significances. “I’d like that last operator that we lost to be the last operator we lose in this fight or the fight of the future,” he said at a news conference in July. “I think we can get there.”

Jim Tinsley, a partner at the defense consulting firm Avascent, said that not all sorts of body armor are created equal. The Marine Corps started adding more body armor to soldiers, but SOCOM is unwilling to do that since it’ll decrease mobility. What TALOS aims to do is to get around physics and make lighter body armor, but also make it sturdier.

Nanomaterial Can Stop a Speeding Bullet, Strengthen Soldiers’ Body Armor

It seems counterintuitive that manufacturing body armor lighter could offer a soldier more fortification. RDECOM is planning to use magnetorheological (MR) fluids in TALOS to resolve this paradox. “MR fluid armor relies on magnetic fields that can be mixed to create different degrees of hardness and elasticity,” said Tinsley.

But the choice of MR fluids in TALOS comes as a bit of a astonishment to Tinsley. “The agreement has been that shear-thickening fluid, which reacts to a force or impact by hardening, is more practical than MR and further likely to be commercialized sooner,” he said. Maybe there’s been a breakthrough in MR that hasn’t been publicized yet.

In addition to TALOS’ defensive capability is its aptitude to combine numerous types of technologies, such as physiological sensors and power supplies, into a single piece of gadget. “Each of these technologies were developed in parallel,” said Tinsley. “Now, RDECOM is looking to SOCOM as an early adopter and seeing how to integrate all these technologies.”

November’s demo of the body armor also assists as a way for SOCOM to assess what it truly wants in TALOS.

Reference Link: http://www.everythinglubbock.com/story/iron-man-like-body-armor-for-soldiers-in-the-works/d/story/yNv14gLV9U6hvVwjy-1N6w

Images was from: livescience.com

 

TALOS Suit More Comparable to Other Science Fiction Characters

SOCOM, the United States Special Operations Command, is structuring an exoskeleton—a powered set of armor. Known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS), the suit is meant for use by U.S. Special Forces and is intended to provide operators lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and super-human strength. Antennas and processers embedded into the suit will escalate the wearer’s situational consciousness by providing user-friendly and real-time battlefield data.

This suit, says Stars and Stripes, is currently in the prototyping and design stage, and is theoretically to be out and in working order by 2018. It’ll look approximately like this:

 

The TALOS combat suit is sort of a frightening perception, if you think about it. On the one hand, it will surely do a prodigious job protecting soldiers on the forward-facing lines.

To get out in advance of any unclear feelings about the TALOS suit, the military has tied up in a bit of a subtle branding campaign, dubbing TALOS the “Iron Man” suit. William McRaven, who heads up SOCOM, is hoping to gather some of Tony Stark’s superhero good vibes.

But science fiction is stuffed with stories of characters cavorting around in battle armor and superpowered exoskeletons. Maybe Iron Man isn’t the most proper comparison? After all, soldiers wearing TALOS suits will not be able to fly or shoot high-energy beams from their hands.

 

Star Wars’ storm troopers seem a closer match, no super fancy powers except a nice utility belt. Appearance wise, TALOS looks much closer to a storm trooper. Though, hopefully SOCOM’s suit comes without the target suppressor.

If we’re looking for other comparisons, a good place to start is Popular Mechanics’ list of the most iconic exoskeletons in science fiction. From Starship Trooper’s nuke-toting, rocket-jumping infantry, to Metroid’s armadillo-impersonating Muscle Suit, many of these correspondingly miss the mark. But there’s one that might be a more suitable judgment for the army’s new suit; the Mark V, Master Chief’s combat suit from Halo.

The armor turns its wearer into a high-jumping, truck-flipping superhuman. As exciting as an armed Power Loader might seem, a stronger, up-armored soldier, capable of trudging miles through the 100-degree desert without tiring and then jumping into a Humvee without ripping out its suspension, is a more reasonable fantasy.

​How weaponries like drones and power suits are used in future combat depends, in part, in how they’re observed by the community. And that’s why the connotations we forge between actual tools and beloved science fiction characters matter.

This link talks about more relatable characters: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/fact-vs-fiction/SciFi-most-iconic-exoskeletons-5

Images was from: livescience.com, comicvine.com, mwctoys.com