Power Armor Scientific Discussion

[Anonymous No.9698324]

A polonium RTG is the only thing I think that can realistically power the armor.

In terms of bullet resistance, it should be able to take a 50 caliber round, as long as it doesn't hit a vulnerable location, like a joint.

Has to be able to survive some explosive and fragmentation damage, but should be wrecked by all but the weakest RPG's.

So assuming power isn't a problem, how is it designed? Can a couple electric motors power the legs?

[Anonymous No.9698349]

>>9698324
>Can a couple electric motors power the legs?
Something like this with metal wires acting like tendons.

[Anonymous No.9698421]

>>9698324
>A polonium RTG
For those that don't know polonium puts out about 100 times the energy of a plutonium RTG, with the downfall that it lasts months vs years for the former.

[Anonymous No.9698472]

>>9698324
Why would you use any RTG lmao

[Anonymous No.9698509]

>>9698324
Before deciding on a power source you should calculate how much power you actually need. Really the power source is the least of the issues at this point, there are bigger problems related to control and biomechanics.

>>a couple electric motors power the legs?
that's a more complicated issue than it sounds. Electric motors are by themselves not torque dense enough to be used in an exoskeleton. One needs to add a compact speed reduction mechanism to convert the high speed and low torque to high torque at low speed. In addition, for an exoskeleton we may need additional control capabilities that an electric motor does not. While with a regular electric motor we can control position and velocity, for an exoskeleton it's desirable to control torque, stiffness, and impedance too.

>>explosive
then it's going to resemble an EOD suit and mobility takes a huge hit no matter what.. All that thick padding is necessary to protect against the blast wave.

>>should be wrecked by all but the weakest RPG's
that's a rather odd engineering requirement

>>9698349
>>tendons
and what problems does that solve?

[Anonymous No.9698526]

>>9698472
While weight isn't as much of a problem with power armor, space is. Large batteries would be difficult to fit and a well designed RTG could actually save battery space and generate a tremendous amount of power.

[Anonymous No.9698537]

>>9698526
>tremendous amount of power
you sure about that?

[Anonymous No.9698545]

>>9698509
While I'd enjoy to talk of how to protect power armor from rpg and anti tank weaponry I just don't believe it will ever be feasible and isn't needed for the role of power armor, which doesn't replace a tank or an mrap.

In the Fallout sense power armor was designed to allow an individual to quickly get heavy weaponry behind enemy lines. Good to think of it as a type of scout or quick insertion, like a future version of blitzkrieg. The reality of war today is a two man team can take out any tank with a javelin and less powerful weapons would make power armor into a bloody mess of metal.

Tendons have numerous benefits in locomotive capability. Evolution settled on it for our legs for example for many reasons. They save power, have leverage, allow quick rebound motion, etc.

[Anonymous No.9698553]

>>9698537
The curiosity rover rtg puts out about 110 watts of power with a plutonium rtg.

Plutonium power density 0.54 watts per gram.

Polonium power density 140 watts per gram.

Theoretically that can give you over 28 kilowatts. Even if you can harness a fraction of that it I think that qualifies as tremendous.

[Anonymous No.9698555]

>>9698545
Two men with a javelin don't move very fast. Nor does a man with metal glued to him. Tanks still fulfill a role in combined arms operations.

Reconnaissance is carried out quite well already with existing armored reconnaissance vehicles.

[Anonymous No.9698558]

>>9698526
>>weight isn't as much of a problem
why the fuck is weight not a problem for power armor? The heavier it is, the heavier the actuators need to be, and at some point it gets too heavy to work at all. The power armor needs to be at least strong enough to lift itself off the ground if the person falls over.
>>RTG could actually save battery space and generate a tremendous amount of power
do you have a single fact to back that up?

>>9698545
>>In the Fallout sense
fictional bullshit
>>power armor was designed to allow an individual to quickly get heavy weaponry behind enemy lines.
and why is power armor the logical solution to that?
>>Tendons have numerous benefits in locomotive capability
such as?
>>evolution
can't make things with rotating parts. We can.
>> our legs
don't use electric motors
>>save power
how? Do you have any way to show that this is actually the case?
>>have leverage
why do you need leverage when you have a gearbox?
>> allow quick rebound motion
and why would you expect this to be the case when using electric motors?

[Anonymous No.9698565]

>>9698555
I think you can obviously see the benefit of replacing certain vehicle operations with a person or two in power armor.

The whole point is that could move fast with heavy weaponry, but yeah still much slower than a vehicle. Let us say for debate that a man in power armor could single hand carry a javelin and move at 10 mph.

[Anonymous No.9698573]

>>9698553
RTGs are very inefficient. If you are generating kilowatts of electricity, what are you doing with the megawatt of heat?

[Anonymous No.9698576]

>>9698558
I only have time to address the first part. Already posted above about the rtg. My point about the weight is simple. In order to stop a 50 caliber bullet repeatedly requires pretty thick metal. I've looked it up before, but I can't remember. Maybe an inch of steel or 3/4. Regardless this is a tremendous weight of steel and nothing you put in the armor is going to be close to the weight. Space has to be tight because then we need a lot more weight in steel for the shell if we don't. Besides it is armor, not a car.

[Anonymous No.9698583]

>>9698553
Polonium-210 cost around $12 million per gram. Not happening.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/03/anachronisms.html
>>28 kilowatts
is going to cost you around $4 billion. And that's thermal, not electrical power.
>>9698576
well then perhaps the cost of making power armor(ignoring your magical power supply) outweigh the benefits.

[Anonymous No.9698594]

>>9698583
>Polonium-210 cost around $12 million per gram. Not happening

There is /pol/ irony in what I'm about to say. The reason the cost is so high is because the last time I checked only the Russians produced it. The US could easily start producing it themselves if they needed it for future weapons programs.

[Anonymous No.9698609]

>>9698594
worldwide production is still only about 100 grams per year according to the NRC:
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/polonium.html

>>The US could easily start producing it themselves
But not in the bulk quantities necessary to make it a practical infantry weapon.

[Anonymous No.9698613]

>>9698324
>it should be able to take a 50 caliber round
It would need magic future tech to prevent the wearer from liquefying.

[Anonymous No.9698642]

>>9698613
>tank gets hit by a 50 caliber
>everyone inside gets liquefied
lawl

[Anonymous No.9698652]

>>9698324
The problem with power armor is trying to cram a whole person in there. The real future of armored troop warfare is volunteer brain transfers from the original meaty host to a metal battle housing. That not only would save space and allow for more rigidity, but remove the bipedal limitations as well.

[Anonymous No.9698677]

>>9698642
Do people wear tanks

[Anonymous No.9698702]

>>9698677
The point was simple to understand. Why don't people in armored vehicles die from small arms fire? Because the force is directed around them. Same thing in Power Armor. Outer thick layer of metal, then some type of ballistics gel and kevlar. The combination should be enough to take a punch. I know the US military is working on some type of crystal to serve that purpose also, but the basic idea is the same. Direct the force over a wider area.

[Anonymous No.9698708]

>>9698652
>>brain transfers from the original meaty host to a metal battle housing
We don't have a good way to reliably interface with nerves, nor do we have a way to keep a brain alive outside the body for decades. No that recent study does not count.

[Anonymous No.9698718]

>>9698702
You're still putting yourself into direct contact with what is essentially a large bell on all sides. Tanks have huge contact with the ground to dissipate that vibrational energy at least, all the suit has is two little foot pads.

[Anonymous No.9698719]

I like the idea of powered exoskeletons,but I do think that it's not likely to be a thing for a long time. The whole polonium RTG thing seems really iffy to me,the heat management and safety issues would be serious,if it falls into enemy hands or even just gets destroyed now you have ultratoxic radioactive shit all over the place.

It may,someday,be possible to create a small aneutronic fusion reactor. There's even a group working on a dense plasma focus style device that has some promise,they've managed to get up to temps of 1.8 billion degrees. It's much smaller than things like ITER butstill waytoo big for a human sized robottouse,but technology could evolve to allow a smaller version someday. https://lppfusion.com/

[Anonymous No.9698720]

>>9698718
>Tanks have huge contact with the ground to dissipate that vibrational energy at least

Literally what????

[Anonymous No.9698729]

>>9698720
It's okay just take your time.

[Anonymous No.9698731]

>>9698719
>a small aneutronic fusion reactor
is still gonna make a nice amount of x-rays and gamma rays. Really hope LPP succeeds though.

[Anonymous No.9698736]

>Be foreign nation
>Get your shit wrecked by chads in power armour
>Issue explosive tipped heavy weaponry to each infantry squad
>btfo starship troopers using dirt farmers and some cheap weaponry

[Anonymous No.9698741]

>>9698719
>The whole polonium RTG thing seems really iffy to me,the heat management and safety issues would be serious,if it falls into enemy hands or even just gets destroyed now you have ultratoxic radioactive shit all over the place.

Well polonium really isn't used for much so even if an enemy got it the value is minuscule. As we've established you don't need much of the stuff and it wouldn't be enough for a dirty bomb. The best value would be as a portable power supply, but in that case as you state the cooling system needs to be robust o tampering wouldn't be very bright.

I'm curious why you are worried about the cooling issue of an RTG when you speak of such a hot portable fusion device. But regardless RTG efficiency is pretty crap right now. With all the heat you would likely need a micro steam (or maybe graphite) generator to deal with all the heat.

[Anonymous No.9698764]

>>9698741
>>it wouldn't be enough for a dirty bomb
oh hell yes it would. 50 nanograms of polonium is a lethal dose. Sure that lethal dose needs to be consumed or inhaled, but gram quantities of polonium would certainly be enough for terrorism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#210Po_content_in_the_body_of_Litvinenko

>>hot portable fusion device
LPP uses direct energy conversion not a heat engine to produce power. Waste heat produced is going to be much much less.

[Anonymous No.9698858]

I don't think power armor will ever be a thing because firepower will always be ahead of protection in a package that small. Even with the power source problem solved, a suit of power armor would cost millions, but will get rekt by a Toyota with a 20mm cannon mounted in the back.

If we can figure out a power source then maybe we'll see unarmored exoskeletons based on enhancing strength and endurance, but I reckon by then robots will be advanced enough that you won't need a human.

We'll probably see tethered exoskeletons for non-combat uses though. That sort of tech already exists in prototypes, really.

[Anonymous No.9698967]

>>9698324
I don't know if anything except 'movement assistance frames' have any military role to fill. What I mean to say is, power armour is useless militarily.

[Anonymous No.9699057]

>>9698858
exos probably carry full body frag armor + shield they can use prone
they're still infantry and must be agile, they not gonna have vehicle grade armor

[Anonymous No.9699066]

>>9698324
Wat? RTGs?
They've got amazing <10% efficiency, and most RTGs used so far had a whopping 200W output or less?

That might be enough to move a finger around ..

[Anonymous No.9699068]

>>9698967
Why?
They wear helmets, don't they want more protection?

[Anonymous No.9699441]

>>9698858
that's for taking down vehicles
Powered armour is for making infantry immune to all small arms and fragmentation, the hefty shit will always be a danger to them

[Anonymous No.9699448]

why not just make robots, no human factor
Power armor would only be good if it was like Ironman

[Anonymous No.9699505]

>>9698324
The damage by impact is not so troubling as the shockwave. All you have to do to nullify the explosion i create a counter frequency with suffiecient intensity or passivity to allow the shock to be nullified or harmlessly pass through the armor.
Vibranium doesn't exist. However speakers do.

[Anonymous No.9699515]

>>9699505
Are you implying that fucking NOISE MARINES are the answer to a suit capable of surviving an rpg?

[Anonymous No.9699519]

>>9699515
I am saying that with suffiecient work... A suit could possibly WALTZ through the blast.

[Anonymous No.9699524]

>>9699505
I don't think a speaker could create a strong enough shockwave. Unless the diaphragm was made of steel somehow and it was hooked up to a huge power supply.
Speakers are literally made of paper and wood, it would just disintegrate against actual explosives.

[Anonymous No.9699528]

>>9699524
we can make speakers out of different, stronger materials

[Anonymous No.9699542]

>>9699524

t. Brainlet who has never seen a plasma speaker in his life.

I am so fucking angry. I am going to destroy this planet by breaking the unspoken rule. I am going to spill every secret until this earth bleeds magicite and we obliterate ourselves in a hailstorm of fucked up scientific progress.

https://youtu.be/cEeWtBAE5LY

[Anonymous No.9699554]

>>9699542
>small gust of wind blows across the sparkgap
>speaker stops working

[Anonymous No.9699562]

>>9699554
>He can't into insulation

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.9699574]

>>9699554
Welcome to my apocalypse.
Open source.

[Anonymous No.9699674]

>>9699562
I'm assuming the sound comes from the plasma so covering it up would defeat he purpose. Plasma is easy to disrupt, making it unfeasible against bombs and warfare.
Yes, no?

[Anonymous No.9700813]

>>9698545
>The reality of war today is a two man team can take out any tank with a javelin
If your target is outdated nonsense yea. Modern composite armour found on current MBTs totally defeats shaped charges and everything relying on monroe effect. Kinetic munitions were developed to surmount the armour developments.

[Anonymous No.9700855]

>>9699505
That won't work. Creating the counters shockwave would do just as much and more damage as the the original shockwave. And that's if you can create a counter shockwave in the first place. You'd have to measure the shockwave in 3d space and create a shockwave in 3d space that exactly matches it. If it's not exactly matched it will do more damage.
>>9699542
that's not creating a shock wave.

[Anonymous No.9700863]

>>9700855
This is all under the assumption that destructive interference would be used to nullify the original shockwave, just like noise cancelling headphones. That's the easy part.
But think about it. If we could build a speaker that blows up a sound as loud as the shockwave from an explosion we wouldn't need explosives anymore.
It would just become an arms race to build bigger and bigger speakers. It's not doable.

[Anonymous No.9700876]

>>9700863
>> just like noise cancelling headphones.
you can't do that. Noise cancelling headphones don't cancel out all noise, just persistent noise, shockwaves are not persistent.

[Anonymous No.9700883]

>>9700876
They work by amplifying the noise out of phase back in the direction it came. Same principle would work here theoretically.

[Anonymous No.9700886]

>>9700883
so uhhhhhhhh.... how do you measure the shockwave before it you know hits you?

[Anonymous No.9700897]

>>9700886
A laser, Light travels faster than a shockwave

[Anonymous No.9700905]

>>9700886
An indestructible microphone.

[Anonymous No.9701505]

>>9698729
No amount of time is going to explain your made up term of "vibrational energy". Stop using defined scientific terms if you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.9701587]

>>9698324
mobility, strength, environmental protection, decent armor, communication. You do not need SCI-FI level power suits to see that they WILL allow the common soldier to survive longer in combat and be more lethal.

[Anonymous No.9701627]

>>9701587
>>that they WILL allow the common soldier to survive longer in combat and be more lethal.
prove it. Current exoskeletons still have trouble with reducing the metabolic cost of wearing them.

[Anonymous No.9701642]

>>9701627
>Current exoskeletons

This is why the Military industrial complex will spend billions until they get it right.

Rail-guns, power suits, autonomous drones, etc

All are being developed... 5 -10 years before first models out, then generational improvements.

We are now on Fifth-generation jet fighters as an example of generational development of combat platforms.

[Anonymous No.9701649]

>>9701642
Exoskeletons are useless shit in a world where remote/autonomous drones exists. Why put a man inside a machine when you can do the same without it. Six-gen fighters will all be UAV.

[Anonymous No.9701671]

>>9701649

Sir.. as far as we can tell the Brainic nation has not built a single weapon.. Command yells launch all autonomous combat vehicles
5 minutes later Braniac nation has used their superior computing power to override all security protocols to seize control off all autonomous vehicles. War ends! Braniacs win.

[Anonymous No.9701686]

>>9701671
And hat's why electronic warfare is a thing.

[Anonymous No.9702332]

>>9698324
why don't just use carbon nanotubes?

[Anonymous No.9702366]

>>9698324
>ITT: people who have never been in the military or received any kind of infantry training.

the primary interest the military has in powered exoskeletons is not to field and army invincible juggernaughts. its to develop a squad supporting heavy weapons platform and/or other squad support equipment (radios, CBR gear, anti-armor weaponry, etc).

currently, weapons like the 240B, Mk 19, and M2 require teams of 2-3 people to wield and they are exclusively stationary weapons. if you could have one infantryman carry these weapons AND shoot them accurately while moving, that would be an incredible tactical advantage in combat. you wouldn't have a full platoon of them, just one per squad. most likely the grenadier position.

[Anonymous No.9702702]

>>9702366
If you read the thread I've made the exact point you did about heavy weapons as a primary reason for power armor.

See:
>>9698545

>>9702332
Because there isn't any armor that exists right now.

[Anonymous No.9702719]

>>9701671
oops looks like our exoskeletons got hacked too, all our infantry have died. The enemy has sent the following message "stop hitting yourself."

[Anonymous No.9702721]

>>9698324
This would be a good addition to a squad. It would offer multi-functional support with various load outs depending on missions. I could see maybe one or two in a team playing a very tactical role in missions with high chance of engagement but explosives are going to wreck its world. In that sense, this one is more for the DoD contractors than the soldier on the battlefield. I could see some commercial applications.

[Anonymous No.9702737]

>>9702719
Drones like this are just not feasible without some instant form of communications with quantum encryption.

>>9702721
Yeah I agree with the support role being huge. Imagine one guy being able to load all the weapons on a jet fighter very quickly. Something that now takes lots of time, people and equipment.

[Anonymous No.9702761]

>>9702737
You don't need any communication if you have autonomous robots.

[Anonymous No.9702763]

>>9702761
Yes you do. They would be working with each other, reporting to command. Orders change.

[Anonymous No.9702779]

>>9698324
>Can a couple electric motors power the legs?
Any more than 1 electric motor in any device is a sign of deficient and lazy engineering.

[Anonymous No.9703146]

>>9702763
You don't need communication for them to be able to work with each other. For example swarm bots can keep track of where other member of the swarm are visually. Area denial weapons also don't need communication capability.

>>9702779
bullshit. Electric actuators are way more reliable than everything else. Also we need to stop designing mechanical systems like we used to design electronics with vacuum tubes. When people designed electronics with vacuum tubes they always tried to minimize the number of vacuum tubes, then the transistor happened and changed everything. With a bit of work we could have a similar revolution for electric actuators.
>>lazy
when you are designing for performance, no matter what you cannot be lazy. Industrial robot arms are quite amazing things, being incredibly precise and reliable. We're talking MTBFs of 100,000 hours or more. That's 10 years of continuous operation.

[Anonymous No.9704376]

>>9698652
how about a remote controlled android like a UAV make it as tough and durable as possible, but in the end its disposable. Even if its a little less capable than a normal human it would be a huge strategic advantage to be able to go trough a battlefield with 0 casualties

[Anonymous No.9704391]

>>9701671
You're implying that the human brain isnt also a computer, you can hack a human brain and its way more cheaper, its called propaganda. Actually that is what has won or lost all wars since vietnam

[Anonymous No.9704392]

>>9702719
>oops looks like our exoskeletons got hacked too, all our infantry have died. The enemy has sent the following message "stop hitting yourself."
how many drones were succesfuly hacked by the enemy? 0.0000000000

[Anonymous No.9704415]

Why are you people shitting up my thread with off topic bullshit?

This isn't a thread on autonomous military power. Just manned power armor.