NPR: Marines Want Exoskeleton, Maybe Robot

Marines Want Exoskeleton, Maybe Robot

Filed under: Iraq

Noah Shachtman, defense editor for the Wired blog network, uncovered a 2004 request from the Marines for a Marine Exoskeletal Performance Augmentation Capability. Called MEAC for short, the gear would protect troops today and eventually, maybe, develop into a "self-aware" machine with no need for a human attachment.

Shachtman writes that the Marines' proposal appears to have gone nowhere, but the idea may have resurfaced elsewhere:

[O]ther parts of the military continue to pursue exoskeletons. According to Pentagon budget documents, a project to build a "personal combat vehicle," allowing a soldier to "carry 150 pounds while feeling only a small part of the load" is making its way from the blue-sky technologists at Darpa to the Army's more practically-focused engineers.

Laura Conaway

10:05 AM ET | 11-27-2007 | permalink

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