Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Warrior Web: Superman Underwear From DARPA

Warrior Web is yet another of DARPA's program workshops to explore particular ideas. In this case, DARPA is looking for a wearable suit that can help protect warfighters.


(Sketch of energy-harvesting underwear)

This solicitation will be specifically for innovative multidisciplinary research proposals in technology areas related to the mitigation of musculoskeletal injuries on modern warfighters.

The vision of the Warrior Web program, grounded in human physiology and performance, is to develop and demonstrate the technologies required to create a compliant, warfighter-wearable, quasi-passive and adaptive suit system to both reduce injuries and retain optimal warrior performance.

The Warrior Web program currently seeks the development and demonstration of technologies in five thrust areas: injury mitigation technologies; comprehensive analytical representations of biomechanical processes; quasi-passive regenerative actuation technologies; adaptive sensing and control technologies; and advancements in potential suit human-to-machine interfaces.

Science fiction fans may be thinking of the flexible armor suit from the 1966 novel Neutron Star by Larry Niven:

Like a silicone plastic, the pressure suit was soft and malleable under gentle pressures, such as walking, but instantly became rigid all over when something struck it...

I'd also mention the powered suit with trauma maintenance from the 1974 novel The Forever War by Joe Haldeman:

"The suit is set up to save as much of your body as possible. If you lose part of an arm or a leg, one of sixteen razor-sharp irises closes around your limb with the force of a hydraulic press, snipping it off neatly and sealing the suit before you can die of explosive decompression. Then "trauma maintenance" cauterizes the stump, replaces lost blood,and fills you full of happy juice and No-shock. So you will either die happy or, if your comrades go on to win the battle, eventually be carried back up to the ship's aid station."

From Warrior Web Proposers’ Day Workshop via Wired.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/29/2011)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Warfare ")

Sea Drones Attack Russian Fleet
'...autofreighters, and other self-piloting craft.' - Ray Naylor, 2022.

Slaughterbot AI KIller Quadcopter Drones
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995.

Russia Working On Military Exoskeletons
'...you look like a big steel gorilla...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959.

TALOS Exoskeleton Development Proceeding
'Suited up, you look like a big steel gorilla...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Win $250K By Reading Ancient Scrolls Carbonized By Vesuvius
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'

Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!

AI-Trained Snack App Avatar Goes On Dates For You
'... who let their handbag computers carry all the conversation.'

M-Dwarf Stars May Not Have Habitable Planets
'Thus it came about that the search for a planetiferous sun near a white dwarf star was not unduly prolonged...'

Too Soon To Doom Lunar Farside Observatories
'Earth never shone there, but life was good.'

Amitabh Bachchan Wins Personality Protection
'He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.'

LIAM F1 UWT Clever Rooftop Windmill
'...a windmill on his roof...'

Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning
'It's picking up diphenyl compounds and tetrahydrocarbons...'

Volvo's Autonomous Truck
'They were automatic trucks such as are used for making deliveries...'

Skiing On The Moon - Skiing on Asteroids?
'MacIntyre bent down without a word and picked up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash.'

Liberty Lifter X-Plane From DARPA
'...the tremendous speed that the Jupiter was turning up under the thrust of her twenty-four screws whirling on the shafts of twelve powerful motors.'

Robot Performs 3D Bioprinting Inside The Body
'Probably Runciter's body contained a dozen artiforgs...'

Bubloons May Be The Start Of Something Much Bigger
'Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...'

Sleeping Pods In Tokyo Railway Stations
'... she was asleep before the lid sealed fully back in place.'

Wist Labs Makes Minority Report Family Videos Come True
Step inside your memory - it's immersive.

Robot Imagines Itself (Not The First Time This Has Happened)
'[Robots] have to discover their hands, feet, and other parts of their bodies'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.