HAAM suits.

[dragoon500ly]

The military has been test exo-skeletons for decades, some of the demo models are quite impressive with their enhanced strength, power seems to be the major stumbling block, with current batteries and fuel cells just not capable of going for more than a few hours, adding armor (weight), weapons, ammo, sensors, comm gear (did I mention weight?) Cuts into the operational time.

There is also the issue of ground pressure, you can only apply so much weight into the "footprint" before you start having issues with the suits sinking into soft ground, this is why many of the military's robots are fitted with tracks, that all terrain mobility is critical to the armored suit concept.

Truth be told, I feel that the HAAM suit will never be deployed.

[mikeo80]

Here is something for you to think about.

http://news.yahoo.com/military-39-39...141715486.html

Not a HAAM suit. Not Iron Man either. But, this seems to have potential. We will see.

My $0.02

Mike

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

The military has been test exo-skeletons for decades, some of the demo models are quite impressive with their enhanced strength, power seems to be the major stumbling block, with current batteries and fuel cells just not capable of going for more than a few hours, adding armor (weight), weapons, ammo, sensors, comm gear (did I mention weight?) Cuts into the operational time.

Those are all valid for current demo models, but don't apply to the HAAM suit which has overcome those issues - we have the stats!

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

There is also the issue of ground pressure, you can only apply so much weight into the "footprint" before you start having issues with the suits sinking into soft ground, this is why many of the military's robots are fitted with tracks, that all terrain mobility is critical to the armored suit concept.

Using 3ed stats (since I don't have 4ed), the suit masses 907kg. If we give it another 93kg of pilot and such to make it a nice even 1000kg, and then assume that it has two feet that are ellipses 12" long and 4" wide (not unreasonable, to me), then the total ground pressure is about 50kPa (~7.3 PSI). If my math is correct then with those reasonably sized feet it would exert about as much ground pressure as a barefoot person, and much less than a car.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Those are all valid for current demo models, but don't apply to the HAAM suit which has overcome those issues - we have the stats!


Using 3ed stats (since I don't have 4ed), the suit masses 907kg. If we give it another 93kg of pilot and such to make it a nice even 1000kg, and then assume that it has two feet that are ellipses 12" long and 4" wide (not unreasonable, to me), then the total ground pressure is about 50kPa (~7.3 PSI). If my math is correct then with those reasonably sized feet it would exert about as much ground pressure as a barefoot person, and much less than a car.

Math seems off. Area of each ellipse is ~50 sq in. Mass 2200 pounds. Total "foot" area is ~100 sq in. Pressure with both feet on the ground about 22 PSI.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Math seems off. Area of each ellipse is ~50 sq in. Mass 2200 pounds. Total "foot" area is ~100 sq in. Pressure with both feet on the ground about 22 PSI.

My math was off, I had plugged in major/minor axis where it should have been semi-major/semi-minor. Using the right numbers puts the pressure at 29 PSI / 201 kPa... which is still about the ground pressure of a passenger car.

Still too much? Extend the feet to 15" long and 6" wide (smaller than most snowshoes) and pressure drops to 15.6 PSI / 107 kPa. Extend them to 8"x25" (small snowshoe) and PSI drops to 7 PSI / 48 kPa. Make them 10"x36" (large snowshoe) and PSI is only 3.9 PSI / 27 kPa.

None of those seem unreasonable. Heck, I might give the suit those 6"x15" feet for urban work and then give them attachable foot plates in the larger sizes for off-roading. The suits would still be too heavy for indoors, but that is the only real issue I see with the pressure.