The Army is still dreaming of a suit of powered armor for soldiers
Make way for the 'Warrior Suit' — eventually.
BY JARED KELLER | PUBLISHED JUN 15, 2023 8:30 AM EDT
After more than six decades of pursuing the dream of a heavily-armored infantryman ripped from the pages of Starship Troopers or a real-life ‘Iron Man’ suit, the U.S. military is once again taking a crack at building a suit of powered armor to support the soldier of the future. Eventually.
Dubbed the ‘Warrior Suit,’ the idea of a brand new combat exoskeleton for soldiers is a “far-term” element of the Army’s robotics strategy, according to an unclassified April 2022 presentation from the Maneuver Capability Development Integration Directorate (MCDID) at Army Futures Command, an initiative that likely won’t see action until the 2040s at least.
While details regarding the notional armored exoskeleton are scant, potential Warrior Suit capabilities were first publicly discussed by Ted Maciuba, the then-deputy director of robotics requirements for the MCDID, at the Eurosatory defense exposition in Paris last year — most notably, the ability to lighten already-exorbitant combat loads for infantry forces.
“We will build that Warrior Suit in baby steps,” said Maciuba at the time, according to Defense News. “The first thing is: how are you going to allow a soldier to carry that extra 50 pounds and not feel like they’re carrying it? And then we will work our way up to upper body and we will start to integrate it so that it will be a Warrior Suit by 2040-ish. We have to take it in small steps.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/army-exoskeleton-powered-armor-warrior-suit/
