Robotic suit amplifies human strength
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.
