

Military researchers are building mechanical suits that provide superstrength and inhuman endurance. Next up: an undersea exoskeleton that turns the wearer into a giant, cyborg penguin.

A recent Pentagon report on the threat of technological surprise highlighted "devices that have been designed to improve or extend human performance in the physical domain" as an area of rapid development. Most took that to mean Iron Man–style exoskeletons. But the underwater version may offer more benefits in the short term:

the potential advantages of biologically inspired approaches are considerable, including increased stealth (unlike propeller-driven devices, which produce a distinct signature, they are indistinguishable from background noise), natural interface (they form a transparent extension of the wearer’s body), and hands-free operation (they can be operated using only the lower body). With today’s components, a cruising speed of 1 m/sec is feasible with approximately 2.4 kg off-the-shelf silver-zinc batteries.

The report's estimates come from work carried out by Peter Neuhaus and Jerry Pratt, at the University of West Florida's Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. The team's concept is known as Performance Improving Self Contained Exoskeleton for Swimming ("PISCES"). They have looked at various bio-inspired systems that are based on animal propulsion, and borrowed design features from dolphins, sea turtles and, yes, penguins. They can't turn you into Michael Phelps, but they can certainly make a big difference improve speed and endurance.

Their lower-body concept is like a powered version of normal swim fins;

it senses and amplifies your natural movements. While there are plenty of devices already on the market for swimmers, these gadgets are relatively easy to detect at a distance. PISCES would be much more useful than these for a stealthy underwater assault.

The more fanciful version is an upper-body concept that straps to your arms and allows you to swim like a penguin – unfortunately this is a very awkward approach for most swimmers:

The major drawback to upper extremity design is that the flapping motion is not a natural form of swimming for humans. Even though the robotic device would provide most of the force required for locomotion, the user would still be required to perform the basic motion. The other difficulty with an upper extremity exoskeleton is having the user control the pitch of the fin.

Peter Neuhaus says that their underwater exoskeleton is still in development; recently, he's been concentrating on a lower-body exoskeleton that will allow the disabled to walk again. But somewhere else, if the threat report is to be believed, there may be someone working on an underwater army of superfrogmen (or superpenguinmen)

ready to launch a surprise assault.

(Pictures: Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, University of West Florida)

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