Military Iron Man Suit Gets An Upgrade

Grrr, I hate these boards!

Raytheon has released footage of their second iteration of the Sarcos XOS exoskeleton.  The clip features Clark Gregg, who plays S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson in Iron Man and The Avengers and calls this “the closest thing we have to the Iron Man suit.”  The XOS 2 reduced power consumption by 50% (they’re shooting for an 80% reduction).

The new model, the XOS 2, utilizes high-pressure hydraulics. The result is a suit that allows the user therein to lift upwards of 200 pounds, several hundred times without growing tired. The suit will also allow the user to punch through three inches of wood easily. [SlashGear]

That wood totally deserved it, being all . . . woody and whatnot.  Anyway, they expect these exoskeletons to appear in the military theater in around five years for the tethered version and three to five years after that for a non-tethered exoskeleton.  We need to get Will Smith into one of those so if the aliens get hostile he can punch them and say “Welcome to Earf.”

[More pics and the press release at Engadget.]