Lockheed Martin's "HULC" Combat Exoskeleton

Not the big powered frame from Aliens but nevertheless very neat. But power is still very limiting:

From the vid, the HULC certainly seems a step forward on Raytheon's rival XOS mechwarrior suit, which at last report still trails an inconvenient power cable to the nearest wall socket.

Not so the HULC; four pounds of lithium polymer batteries will run the exoskeleton for an hour walking at 3mph, according to Lockheed. Speed marching at up to 7mph reduces this somewhat; a battery-draining "burst" at 10mph is the maximum speed.

The user can hump 200lb with relative ease while marching in a HULC, however, well in excess of even the heaviest combat loads normally carried by modern infantry. There'd be scope to carry a few spare batteries. Even if the machine runs out of juice, Lockheed claims that its reinforcement and shock absorption still helps with load carrying rather than hindering.

An hour? Not a lot you can do in an hour.

Thanks to Arthur.

Bonus: Via Instapundit, progress continues on the Goo Gun.

"He slimed me"

posted by Ace at 02:33 PM

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