Giving soldiers a high-tech leg up

Those whiz kids at Darpa are at it again. This time they want to use technology to let soldiers carry up to 220 lb in backpacks over all types of terrain,terrain vehicles can't get through, and for extended lengths of time. Bleex 1, an experimental exoskeleton, lets a person carry a 70-lb load, along with the 100-lb Bleex 1 itself, but feel as if he is carrying a 5-lb load. The final version of Bleex will let soldiers carry 200-lb backpacks. They believe the key is wearable robotic exoskeletons and have invested $50 million in the project. One recipient, a design team at the University of California, Berkeley, is under the lead of Mechanical Engineering Prof. H. Kazerooni. They've completed work on their first prototype, Bleex 1 (for Berkeley lower extremity exoskeleton) and are working on Bleex 2. Bleex 1 consists of a pair of hydraulically powered leg braces, more than 40 electronic sensors, a control computer, and an internal-combustion engine providing power from an attached backpack. The plastic and carbon-fiber braces are affixed rigidly to the soldier through a customized