The US Army's Vision of Soldiers in Exoskeletons Lives On

This newfound propulsion appears to person yielded respective caller experiments with exoskeleton exertion successful caller years. In 2018, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $6.9 cardinal declaration to “enhance” its ONYX exosuit for aboriginal Army demonstrations (Accetta, the DEVCOM spokesman, tells WIRED that inaugural was ended owed to a “number of method issues” and deficiency of funding). Similarly, the work has been investigating the Dephy ExoBoot for astatine least the past respective years. In August 2022, the Army unveiled an (unpowered) exoskeleton dubbed the Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply (SABER) to trim little backmost symptom and carnal accent among work members successful the field; according to a 2023 study, 90 percent of soldiers who utilized the exosuit during tract artillery grooming exercises reported an accrued quality to execute their assigned tasks. And the Army isn’t the lone subdivision exploring exoskeletons: Later successful 2022, the Air Force announced that the work was investigating its ain pneumatically powered exosuit developed by ROAM Robotics to assistance aerial porters load up cargo craft similar the C-17 Globemaster III.

The Fort Sill exoskeleton proceedings isn’t conscionable the latest installment successful a seven-decade propulsion to meld antheral and machine; it’s besides typical of the service’s cautious, restrained approach to the technology. Although US subject planners whitethorn person agelong aspired to physique an service of those alleged servo soldiers to predominate the aboriginal battlefield, existent exoskeleton probe efforts look laser focused connected much humble and perchance attainable applications similar logistics and resupply alternatively than combat engagements. Slowly but surely, the Pentagon is cautiously examining whether a robotic assistance volition assistance work members transportation much for longer downrange.

But the Pentagon doesn’t look to person wholly fixed up connected its imagination of a powered exoskeleton arsenic the ground for an armored battlesuit conscionable yet. The 2017 Army RAS strategy, contempt its accent connected lightening worker loads, besides posited the semipermanent extremity of gathering a “warrior suit” with “integrated displays that aggregates a communal operating picture, provides quality updates, and integrates indirect and nonstop occurrence weapons systems”—capabilities not dissimilar those imagined with a notional Starship Troopers mobile infantry oregon Iron Man suit-clad relation and explored with the TALOS initiative. As of a fewer years ago, astatine slightest 1 Army authoritative was still talking astir specified a suit arsenic a semipermanent effort that could perchance go a world sometime successful the 2040s.

Today, however, that thought appears to beryllium successful hibernation, if not afloat dead. When asked astir the “warrior suit” effort, DEVCOM officials threw acold h2o connected the full conception arsenic “the nonrecreational imaginativeness of 1 person” and “not to beryllium considered (even astatine the time) arsenic an authoritative Army position,” contempt its explicit notation successful the 2017 RAS document.

“The ‘warrior suit’ ne'er existed arsenic such, it was ne'er considered a ‘warrior suit’—at slightest not by the Army—but a impervious of concept, meaning, ‘Would thing similar this assistance negociate load portion connected the move?’’ Accetta says. “The fig of technical, integration, design, power, ergonomic, and truthful connected concerns were not trivial.”

“The task is not abandoned, it’s simply inactive,” helium adds. “And if it ever were to go active, we uncertainty highly it would beryllium called a ‘warrior suit.’”