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By Neil Baumgardner
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released a Broad Area Announcement (BAA) last week seeking proposals from industry for a $50 million new program, known as Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA), to develop an mechanical suit that would worn by soldiers to increase their speed, strength, and endurance.
"This is a new initiative in exoskeleton research, we're looking to enhance the performance of soldiers in the combat environment," Ephrahim Garcia, the program manager for the EHPA program, told a teaming workshop for the EHPA program earlier this month.
The new DARPA program marks the Pentagon's first notable return to the area of mechanical human performance augmentation since the Hardiman project, a hydraulic and electric full body suit developed by General Electric (GE) with military funding in the 1960s. The primary limitations of such attempts have been the size and weight required for the system--Hardiman weighed 1,500 pounds- -as well the power needs, which previously required the suit to be hooked into an external power source.
Conversely, the new EHPA program would seek to bring the power, speed, and protection currently seen only the "power armor" of science fiction, such as the oft-cited 1959 novel Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, to the common ground soldier.
"I still believe that at some point in the not too distant future we will in fact have some of the things that are...