Servo - May 2009

Robytes

by Jeff Eckert

Be A Bot

Heavy lifting with a robotic exoskeleton. Courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

If you’ve always coveted a robot’s ability to lift heavy weights and work tirelessly, Lockheed Martin (www. lockheedmartin.com) has a treat for you. At the recent Association of the United States’ Army Winter Symposium, the company introduced the Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) exoskeleton, designed to provide enhanced strength and survivability to soldiers involved in ground operations.

Foot soldiers commonly carry combat loads that are heavy enough to cause injuries and exhaustion, but HULC “transfers the weight from heavy loads to the ground through the battery powered, titanium legs of the lower body exoskeleton.”

The hydraulic powered device allows for deep squats, crawls, and upper body lifting (up to 200 lbs) without much exertion on the part of the user. The device itself weighs 61 lbs ( 28 kg), including two lithium polymer batteries, and eats up about 250W. The hydraulic system normally operates at 3,000 psi, with peak

operations at 5,000 psi, providing the ability to move along at 7 mph ( 11 kph) for long durations or 10 mph ( 16 kph) in short bursts. The biggest drawback is that you have to enlist to get one.

UAV Developed for MIL Cargo

In February, the Office of Naval Research issued a request for information on cargo unmanned aircraft capable of carrying a 1,600 lb (726 kg) payload while clipping along at 250 kt. It turns out that Baldwin Technology — with funding from the US Army — has already been working on the Mono Tiltrotor (MTR) concept, which might be adaptable to fit the bill.

The MTR was originally conceived as an unmanned rotorcraft that can carry a 20 ton payload 1,000 nm without refueling, and Baldwin has a design for a scaled-down VTOL cargo UAV that comes in with a 9,400 lb (426 kg) gross weight, a 3,000 lb (1361 kg) payload, and a 200 kt cruise speed.

With some tinkering, the trade-off between weight and speed seems

Proposed UAV for heavy lifting. Courtesy of Baldwin Technology.

reasonable. Key features include an aerodynamically deployed wing, pitch-axis suspended load, and a tilting coaxial rotor. You can see a video at www.vimeo.com/baldwin.

Crawler to Perform Earthquake Rescues

Kind of creepy crawler.

A more mundane machine is a crawler robot (manufacturer unknown) recently adopted by Japan’s Yokohama Fire Department. It’s designed to seek out (using infrared sensors) and pick up individuals who have been injured in an earthquake, monitor their vital signs, and move back through the rubble using four wheel belts. The cargo bay is a little cramped, though, and if you weigh more than about 240 lbs (110 kg), you’ll have to wait until a real ambulance can get through. As an added bonus, if an aftershock hits before you make it to safety, it looks like a halfway decent — if overly ornate — burial casket.