The military isn’t just researching exoskeletons for the military’s most hair-raising missions, though. As a research project now underway in the U.S. Navy illustrates, military officials are considering ways they could help troops carry out more mundane skills ranging from moving boxes to welding pipes on ships.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin recently provided two exoskeletons to the U.S. Navy for testing through the the National Center for Manufacturing Science, company officials said. The FORTIS suit allows those wearing it to carry more and work longer by transferring the weight they are carrying directly to the ground through a series of braces that wrap around an operator’s arms, legs and back. Those wearing it can hold up to 36 pounds effortlessly, company officials say.

The goals for the FORTIS suit aren’t nearly as lofty as those for the Special Operations Command “Iron Man” suit, known in the military as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS. But it could potentially be fielded much more quickly. Retiring Adm. William McRaven, the outgoing commander of SOCOM, said earlier this year that the single largest hurdle thus far in the “Iron Man” suit has been integrating power into it so troops can move. It isn’t expected to be fielded any sooner than 2018.

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“Obviously if you’re going to put a man in a suit — or a woman in a suit — and be able to walk with that exoskeleton… you’ve got to have power,” McRaven said in February. “You can’t have power hooked up to some giant generator.”

That isn’t an issue for the FORTIS suit. It doesn’t require a power source, and simply shifts the weight a service member is carrying out of his or her hands.