It could easily be a storyline taken straight from the Iron Man movies, but the head of the US Special Forces Command, Adm. William McRaven, wants to make an "Iron man" suit a reality.
McRaven gave the green light to what the Pentagon officially calls a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit this week, and it looks awesome!
McRaven recently spoke about losing a special operator in Afghanistan. "I would like that last operator to be the last one we ever lose," he said.
"If you think of that operator at the breech point of that door, and he’s got to open that door, not knowing what’s on the other side, he’s got to be in position to be protected as soon as that door opens."
Many of the technologies that could be incorporated into McRaven’s idea of an Iron Man suit already exist. "But they still exist separately. So they are taking them all and they are putting them together," said former Navy SEAL Chris Heben.
For example, Raytheon and the military have been working for two years on an exoskeleton that allows a soldier to lift 17 times the weight he normally could.
A company named Springactive has devices that attach to a soldier’s boots that converts every step the soldier takes into electricity that could power his equipment.
On the battlefield, each soldier would carry on his back a small device about the size of a deck of cards that measures heart rate, perspiration, speed, distance and has a GPS in it to pinpoint his location and the location of his fellow troops. And the commander could monitor the whole team in real time.
Heben said if everything works out, TALOS will "take a group of guys that are extremely high functioning on the battlefield and make them completely unstoppable."
Watch the video of TALOS development here.
