Iron Man-style powered armor has proven impractical. New flexible, wearable electronics offer an alternative path to help the infantry.

The Lockheed Martin ONYX doesn’t seem particularly high tech when it’s surrounded by displays of mini-drones, wheeled robots, and VR simulators here. But lean in close and listen as the soldier bends his knee.

It is not Iron Man. It isn’t even Iron Fist. Lockheed Martin’s newest exoskeleton is more like Iron Leg. But for a soldier humping his weapons, ammo and body armor up a mountain in Afghanistan or a high-rise building in a future urban battle, a device to take the load off would be welcome. And, unlike… Keep reading →

How does war change when your weapons can think? Do you trust a computer to decide when and whom to kill? Questions once asked only in science fiction are now becoming matters for policymakers. All four armed services are experimenting with artificial intelligence in every domain: land, sea, air, outer space, cyberspace, and the all-pervasive… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army is developing promising new technology, from long-range missiles to anti-drone defense, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Allyn told reporters today. The problem, of course, is paying for it — which, he said, puts pricey innovations like Iron Man-style powered armor out of reach. So what’s the most exciting tech that could… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “When most people when they hear me talk about this, they immediately start to think of think of Skynet and Terminator,” said the deputy secretary of defense. “I think more in terms of Iron Man.” The Pentagon wants artificial intelligence, said Bob Work, but it doesn’t want “killer robots that roam the battlefield” without… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Advocates of military exoskeletons, from the former chief of Special Operations Command on down, like to invoke Iron Man, Marvel’s iconic armored superhero. But there are other models for more modest and more feasible, yet still militarily valuable uses of exosuit technology. So don’t just think of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. Think of Sigourney… Keep reading →

US special operators are notoriously low-profile “silent professionals.” But lately the Internet’s been abuzz over Special Operations Command’s effort to build a high-tech suit of bulletproof armor – TALOS, the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit – that the normally understated chief of SOCOM, Adm. William McRaven, actually compared to the metal-clad superhero Iron Man. Make… Keep reading →