A Sewage-Proof Suit

Diesel oil and raw sewage slowly trickled into Taber MacCallum’s eyes as he swam toward the sunken research ship he’d been called to help salvage. It was 1989, and Hurricane Hugo had devastated Puerto Rico three days before, dumping fuel and municipal waste into San Juan Harbor. As the young diver and analytical chemist worked to raise the ship, the seals on his diving equipment disintegrated in the muck that crept into his helmet. Every time MacCallum exhaled into the putrid water, his helmet let a few drops back in.

Most contaminated-water diving is done by military and professional divers either as part of routine inspections or just after tanker explosions, natural disasters and pipeline breaks. “It can be hard to determine if a body of water is contaminated just by looking at it,” explains Phil Newsum, a former commercial diver who now heads the Association of Diving Contractors International. “But those pollutants will come right into your helmet.”

In 2001, shortly after sending its divers into diesel-fouled waters to repair the USS Cole, the U.S. Navy put out a request for a company to help it develop diving equipment designed specifically for contaminated water. MacCallum jumped at the opportunity. After two years living in the sealed environment of Biosphere 2, he had founded a company to design life-support systems for extreme environments. His latest project was researching a new space suit for NASA. And he’d never forgotten his San Juan dive.

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The new generation soldier – Exoskeleton

Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and skis when time allows. But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds – that is, until he steps into an “exoskeleton” of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times.

With the outfit’s claw-like metal hand extensions, he gripped a weight set’s bar at a recent demonstration and knocked off hundreds of repetitions. Once, he did 500.

“Everyone gets bored much more quickly than I get tired,” Jameson said.

Jameson – who works for robotics firm Sarcos Inc. in Salt Lake City, which is under contract with the U.S. Army – is helping assess the 150-pound suit’s viability for the soldiers of tomorrow. The suit works by sensing every movement the wearer makes and almost instantly amplifying it.

The Army believes soldiers may someday wear the suits in combat, but it’s focusing for now on applications such as loading cargo or repairing heavy equipment. Sarcos is developing the technology under a two-year contract worth up to $10 million, and the Army plans initial field tests next year.

Before the technology can become practical, the developers must overcome cost barriers and extend the suit’s battery life. Jameson was tethered to power cords during his demonstration because the current battery lasts just 30 minutes.

But the technology already offers evidence that robotics can amplify human muscle power in reality – not just in the realm of comic books and movies like the recently debuted “Iron Man,” about a wealthy weapons designer who builds a high-tech suit to battle bad guys.

“Everybody likes the idea of being a superhero, and this is all about expanding the capabilities of a human,” said Stephen Jacobsen, chief designer of the Sarcos suit.

The Army’s exoskeleton research dates to 1995, but has yet to yield practical suits. Sarcos’ technology sufficiently impressed Raytheon Co., however, that the Waltham, Mass.-based defense contractor bought Sarcos’ robotics business last November. Sarcos also has developed robotic dinosaurs for a Universal Studios’ “Jurassic Park” theme park ride.

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