<i>"At the time, most of the yards we toured were significantly more advanced in robotic welding than the US yards performing naval ship construction, and had been for a long time," Gene Mitchell, the retired US Navy officer who led the research told New Scientist.</i><p>That's depressing. I don't know why many US industrial firms seem so slow to do their own training, but instead complain about a shortage of skilled workers. There's not much point in spending a lot of money training in some highly specialized area like heavy robotics if you don't know where the demand is.
I think this is an amazing and inevitable outcome. However, sort of disappointed by the 60 kilo max. I feel like these suits need to be an ordwr of magnitude better than humans to be viable. There are certainly people who can lift 125lb objects. I understand that fatigue and uniformity factor in, but it will be great to see 300lb+ suits
Yeah... they had those in 1958:<p><i>Iron Man: Ralph Mosher, an engineer working for General Electric in the 1950s, developed a robotic exoskeleton called Hardiman. The mechanical suit, consisting of powered arms and legs, could give him superhuman strength. Mosher subsequently made a simpler version that permitted him to sit in his chair and pick up refrigerators.</i><p><a href="http://www.hizook.com/blog/2010/09/07/telepresence-robots-news" rel="nofollow">http://www.hizook.com/blog/2010/09/07/telepresence-robots-ne...</a>
Why is this technology being wasted on shipyards when I could be using it to reenact scenes from Aliens and play rock em sock em cyborg in my backyard?