Combat Exoskeleton Marches Toward Afghanistan Deployment

TAMPA, Florida ' Dial down the god-awful soundtrack and try to ignore the choppy camera work, but re-watch Lockheed Martin's promo video depicting its two-year-old Human Universal Load Carrier exoskeleton. Because inside of the year, an improved version of this combat exoskeleton could be headed to Afghanistan for combat trials. That's right: cyborg soldiers might, might just be months away from becoming a front-line reality.

At least, that's what a Lockheed rep indicated today at a Special Forces trade show in Tampa. Asked if there were plans to deploy the HULC exoskeleton overseas following its next round of Army testing, Lockheed's special operation program manager Keith Maxwell nodded yes and said, 'after that.'

Maxwell was wearing what he described as a 'smaller, lighter, more energy-efficient' version of the battery-powered external skeleton, complete with an unloaded machine gun on a pivoting mechanical arm. He asked us not to photograph the exoskeleton, but he was happy to discuss it.

In essence, HULC adds an artificial, external spine, hips, legs and the aforementioned pivoting arm to a soldier's flesh and bones. The machine extremities, powered by a lithium-ion battery, redistribute and transfer up to 200 pounds of weight down and off the wearer's body, allowing him to carry more, longer. 'There's a 10 percent metabolic cost for the benefit of a heavy load removed,' Maxwell says.

Add loads of food, water, batteries and other supplies, and you become a human pack mule for your squadmates. Swap them out for a heavy machine gun and you transform into what Maxwell calls a 'one-man crew-served weapon.' Maxwell says he live-fired his machine gun just before the trade show and 'felt the recoil eliminated down to one-third.'

Lockheed originally rolled out HULC in 2010, but in a heavier, bulkier form that tended to run down its batteries in just an hour. The current model can go for up to eight hours 'on the march,' and lasts 'days and days' on a single charge if you're just standing guard with a machine gun. Lockheed is still working on a fuel cell meant to provide 72 hours of power in even the most strenuous conditions.

Two summers ago the Army paid Lockheed $1.1 million to test HULC at the Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts. There, Lockheed discovered that training was critical. Maxwell says soldiers who expected to strap on the exoskeleton and leap into action without training on it first generally disliked the system. But with 90 minutes of instruction on 'the right series of movements,' wearers were able to move comfortably.

In September the Army will take the improved exoskeleton out for field tests in the United States. If all goes well and Lockheed can get the required safety certifications, HULC will head to a deployed location for a front-line trial. (These days 'deployed' almost always means Afghanistan.) That won't leave HULC much time for testing in a combat environment, as regular U.S. forces are accelerating their withdrawal after 11 years of war.

But Special Forces are slated to remain in Afghanistan for years to come. If they adopt the exoskeletons, we could be seeing (one-sided) cyborg combat on a growing scale in the near future.