For years a pair of brilliant scientists have been locked in a nasty fight to see who could build super-strength suits for the U.S. military. In that battle Sarcos’ Stephen Jacobsen had a key advantage over his arch-rival, Berkeley Bionics’ Hami Kazerooni: Jacobsen had defense contracting giant Raytheon on his side. Which meant government contacts. Engineering know-how. And an ability to manufacture the exoskeletons in quantity, if need be.

Then, last month Kazerooni announced that he had teamed up with a defense-industrial giant, too. Yesterday, at the Association of the United States Army’s winter conference, Lockheed and Berkeley Bionics showed off their exoskeleton, the Human Universal Load Carrier exoskeleton — "HULC." (This video is similar to a one we highlighted last Spring; newer footage in on the Defense News site.)

The super-strength suit attaches to the wearers’ legs, augmenting their power while shadowing their movement. According to Lockheed, HULC enables the wearer to carry up to 200 pounds without much effort — and sprint up to 10 miles per hour in short bursts. Lithium-ion batteries will keep the wearer walking at a normal pace for an hour. The companies also claim that there’s a "long-range extended 72-hour mission model," which relies on JP8 jet fuel. But they didn’t appear to show it off at the conference.

HULC won’t boost arm strength, like Sarcos’ all-body exoskeleton.

But a shoulder strap does help with heavy lifting. And HULC doesn’t need to be tethered to a power source, like Sarcos’ suit does. Which means wearers can crawl and scamper around, uninhibited. HULC is also fairly easy to get on and off — the thing "can be removed in 30

seconds," according to Defense News.

"The HULC can be fitted with armor plating, heating or cooling systems, sensors and ‘other custom attachments,’" Lew Page notes. "We particularly liked that last one: our personal request would be a powered gun or missile mount of some kind above the shoulder, linked to a helmet or monocle laser sight."

Not so fast, Pagey. For now, the joint Lockheed-Berkeley team is just gearing up for "full-scale trials with the Army" in the standard super-suit, "beginning in January 2010."

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