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If you ’ve always want a high - technical school suit of armor that will make you nearly invincible — à la Tony Stark of " Iron Man " — your long wait may soon be over .
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , the U.S. Army Research , Development and Engineering Command ( RDECOM ) and other grouping from business and academia are joining force to create aTactical Assault Light Operator Suit , or TALOS , that " promise to supply superhuman strength with capital ballistic trade protection , " according to a assertion eject by the U.S. Army .
The U.S. Army is developing a high-tech suit for soldiers à la “Iron Man."
The most awful features of the suit include integrated 360 - degree cameras not unlikeGoogle Glass(but with night vision capableness ) , sensors that can discover accidental injury and enforce a wound - sealing foam , and — get quick for this — a bulletproof exoskeleton made of magnetorheological fluid that can change from liquid to solid in milliseconds when a magnetized field or electrical stream is applied . [ Bionic Humans : Top 10 Technologies ]
If it all remind you of the liquid - metal shapeshifter T-1000 from " Terminator " or some other sci - fi character , you ’re not alone . " It sound on the button like’Iron Man , ' " Gareth McKinley , a prof at MIT , toldNPR . " The other form of things that you see in the movies I imagine that would be more realistic at the moment would be the kind of extraneous courting that Sigourney Weaver wears in ' Aliens , ' where it ’s a large robot that amplifies the motion and lift capability of a human . "
The developers from RDECOM , MIT and elsewhere are researching " every aspect make up this fight armour cause , " Lt . Col . Karl Borjes , a RDECOM science adviser , suppose in the U.S. Army command . " It ’s advanced armour . It ’s communication , antennas . It ’s cognitive performance . It ’s detector , miniature - type circuits . That ’s all going to suit in here , too . "
Not everyone , however , is entrance with the super - advanced gizmos being proposed for the soldiers of tomorrow . " My sense is it is an up - armored Pinocchio , " Scott Neil , a go to bed exceptional power victor sergeant and Silver Star recipient , told theTampa Tribune . " Now the commander can thrust a monkey in a suit and ask us to survive a machine gun , IED [ improvize explosive equipment ] and poor intelligence all on the same objective . And when you die in it , as it meld to your body , you’re able to inter them in it . "
Even believers in the TALOS suit recognize its limitation . " The acronym TALOS was chosen deliberately , " McKinley say . " It ’s the name of the bronze panoplied titan from ' Jason and the Argonauts . ' Like all ripe superheroes , Talos has one failing . For the Army ’s TALOS , the weak smudge is either the need to carry around a cloggy heart for a hydraulic system , or lots of heavy batteries . We do n’t have Iron Man ’s great power beginning yet . "
For would - be sci - fi superheroes who are ready for their very own TALOS , the wait may prove excruciating : Though various components of the suit are currently in exploitation , the Army hope to have a prototype ready next year , and an advanced model wo n’t be developed until at least two year after that .
