Crouched in a desert trench somewhere in the Middle East, enemy bullets thudding into the sand just above his head, the wounded soldier checks his wrist-mounted thermometer. It's a searing 43 degrees, and he's been trapped there for two days with little water and no food at all.
Amazingly, he's comfortable. A microturbine integrated into his battlesuit provides power for a highly effective microclimate air-conditioning system that maintains his body temperature at a safe level. A transdermal nutrient delivery system provides just enough nourishment to keep his body going. The pain of a leg wound sustained in a firefight two hours earlier has subsided to a dull ache.
He's not especially worried: an integrated ultrasound system has located the bleeding wound and cauterised the blood vessels. A fractured tibia has been splinted with an exomuscular device forming part of his body armour. Stray bacteria have already been zapped by a nanoscale fabric coating inside his battlesuit, which has broadcast details of his location and physical condition to headquarters.
Minutes later, a rescue helicopter arrives and the wounded soldier is hoisted to safety. His rescuers shake their heads: embedded in his battlesuit, their formidable kinetic energy absorbed by just a few millimetres of material, is a neat row of AK-47 bullets.
A scene from a futuristic war movie? Not at all - much of this technology is already a fact, and it's coming soon to an army near you.
Nothing works on Future Warrior, and that's the way it's supposed to be. This advanced uniform ensemble depicts technology that's still decades away from battlefield application.
Whereas the US military's Objective Force Warrior (OFW) soldier weapon platform is likely to be fielded within the decade, Future Warrior is set apart as a visionary tool for researchers, says Cheryl Stewardson, spokesperson for the Natick Soldier Centre's OFW programme.
Future Warrior was reintroduced (the original made its debut in 1999) at last year's opening of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), a partnership between the US Army and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We wanted to showcase now the concepts they're working on for the future, says Stewardson. Seeing concepts on a human form helps us see how technologies might be used and their limitations.
Today's dismounted infantry soldier carries a back-breaking load (anything from 45 to 63 kg) and still has insufficient ballistic protection, little defence against chemical and biological weapons, and too many pieces of equipment that don't work well together. The ISN's challenge is to transform today's cotton/ nylon fatigues and bulky equipment belts to a sleek, lightweight battlesuit that provides everything from responsive armour to medical monitoring to communications - and more - in one integrated system.
Eager to show off their creation to the brass, ISN produce a real soldier and kit him out.
Looking distinctly menacing in the all-black, custom-fitted uniform is Sergeant Raul Lopez, liaison sergeant with the Operational Forces Interface Group.
Replacing the modified motorcycle helmet used in the previous Future Warrior concept, the custom-designed helmet Lopez wears is leaner, and incorporates several features born from upcoming technology. For example, a blue-tinted visor signifies agile eye protection against tunable lasers. Inside is new projection display technology based on that found in the Joint Strike Fighter helmet.
Says Stewardson: We now have sensors for thermal and image intensification, but making them small enough, fusing the images and projecting them on to the visor - that's the leap.
Openings at the top of the helmet fit in with the idea of a 3-D audio and visual sensor suite. They restore natural hearing lost in an encapsulated space, and enhance long-range hearing. Cameras provide vision from the sides and behind. A smaller halo on the helmet represents a tracking system for friendly and enemy forces.
By reshaping the helmet, Future Warrior's
creators have given the soldier an expanded field of view.
Protection against chemical and biological agents is more realistic than before, with a respirator tube that attachs to the back of the helmet and connects to a low-profile air purifier that forces cool air into the helmet for comfort and visor defogging.
It was envisioned to come down very sleek into the body, but we couldn't find a material to do it in the short time we had to put this concept prototype together, Stewardson says.
Another major change in the uniform is the addition of protruding, interconnecting black pieces of plastic on the legs that represent a lower-body exoskeleton. It will connect through the boots up to the waist and enable the wearer the ability to carry up to 90kg.
Above the waist, MIT's research on nanomuscles for advanced arm and torso strength may be linked to the exoskeleton to give Future Warrior potentially superhuman ability to move or carry. A flexible display on the forearm glows when switched on and draws attention to the simulated touch-screen keypad for information input and output for tasks such as navigation, physiological status monitoring and command communication.
The display is connected to a compact computer worn on an armoured belt around the waist.
Attached to the arm is a slim box representative of the remote control unit for any system that might be used in a future battle, such as a robotic mule or unmanned aerial vehicle.
Found near the top of the torso (front and back) are what look like small buttons built into the fabric. These depict a nanostructure sensor array to detect weapons of mass destruction, friendly or enemy lasers, or even changing weather patterns.
Explains Stewardson: The sensors could trigger a response in the uniform to open or close the fibres, depending on temperature or precipitation.
Black was chosen to suggest to observers that it's a uniform of the future, she says, although their ultimate target is a uniform that's invisible.
Speaking of stealth, much of the futuristic capability can't be shown because it's based on nanotechnology. Along the black stretch fabric are custom-fitted plastics and foams that take the place of liquid body armour that will instantly solidify when struck. All the parts are much harder than we wanted. We haven't figured out how to portray it (liquid armour), says Stewardson.
I believe nanotechnology is going to give us much more than we can even envision today. This is just a sampling.
Through nanotechnology, multifunctional materials will be able to transport power and data. The materials will also be able to fend off chemical and biological agent attacks, self-decontaminate, and become waterproof.
As in the original concept, a microturbine will provide power for items such as the microclimate conditioning system for heating and cooling. The weapon remains a fire-and-forget system using soft-launch seeking missiles, and a transdermal nutrient delivery system provides the nourishment to get through a battle.
Future Warrior will remain a moving target for researchers, shedding workable techno-logy for the next best thing.
There's always going to be a Future Warrior, Stewardson says. In the soldier business, you can never rest on your laurels. Somebody is always out there to beat you.
Future Warrior may be stuck in the future, but Objective Force Warrior (OFW) is moving closer to becoming a reality.
Eagle Enterprise, a division of General Dynamics, will execute Phase II (preliminary and detailed design) and Phase III (demonstration build, training and demonstration) of the OFW programme, managed by the Natick Soldier Centre.
OFW is the Army's flagship soldier science and technology programme. It's focused on providing the future soldier and small team with combat overmatch and skip-a-generation capabilities intended to improve soldier survivability and enable greater combat lethality. Added to
this is networked communications between soldiers and other combat platforms such as the Future Combat Systems and Commanche helicopter.
Army transformation is all about networking soldiers with weapon systems, vehicles, and aircraft to create a joint, integrated fighting force with overwhelming and devastating power, says Lt-General John Riggs, director, Objective Force Task Force. OFW forms the heart of the soldier-centric Objective Force.
The Objective Force is the US Army's future full-spectrum force - organised, manned, equipped and trained to be more strategically responsive, deployable, agile, versatile, lethal, survivable and sustainable across the entire spectrum of military operations.
Its aim - to enable the army to see first, understand first, act first and finish
decisively from major-theatre war to peacekeeping missions and US homeland security.
Enabled through a seamless network, the OFW soldiers will have unprecedented
battlefield knowledge, standoff precision lethality, ballistic survivability and mobility capabilities available today only in platform-based forces, but without burdensome weight. The goal is to reduce a soldier's physical load by 50 percent, down to less than 22kg.
The Natick Soldier Centre is doing its best to integrate electronic capabilities and optical components with textile materials and soldier equipment. Future Warrior Systems already in the pipeline have head-up displays, wireless weapons, global positioning, chemical detectors, battery power, physiological status sensors, and combat ID, all linked to the Warrior's personnel computer to assist in situational awareness and understanding.
Electronic devices are being miniaturised for personal use; however, limited technologies exist to integrate electronics into clothing. Combat clothing materials are currently passive. Consequently, the integration of electronics into the Soldier System will provide enhanced capabilities by providing real-time information to the soldier on the battlefield.
Active intelligent textile systems will have the capacity to improve the Warrior's performance by sensing and responding to a situational combat need, allowing the wearer to continue his mission without distraction.
The solution, say its creators, is to convert passive combat clothing into active materials that provide electronic/optical power and data transmission to the on-body computer, batteries, displays and sensors, and to several integrated antennas for near and remote communications.
Personal area network cables, connectors for attaching sensors and computer peripheral devices, and a variety of concealed antennas for near and remote communications need to be integrated into the Warrior's clothing and equipment to reduce the weight and bulk of the current electronic systems that need to be carried. Other areas of interest include the integration of conductive plastic batteries, solar and other power-generating components
into textiles.
This is weird stuff. Imagine a fabric coating just a few molecules thick that kills bacteria and keeps the wearer dry, or dynamic body armour based on fluids that harden when exposed to a magnetic field. How about composites of nanoparticles that could be used to create molecular chain mail?
One ISN team is developing ways to monitor patient physiology as well as novel materials to aid wound healing. If all goes according to plan, battlesuit sensors will relay details of a soldier's location and physical condition to headquarters. New nanosurfaces can detect
biological and chemical agents and protect the future soldier from those threats.
Biomedical monitoring will use ultrasound to detect a haemorrhage in the injured soldier and
cauterise vessels to staunch the bleeding. Soldiers' uniforms can become exomuscular devices for medical applications, such as splints for
broken bones. And new nanomaterials can instantaneously change their properties by electrical switching, thereby controlling the delivery and release of life-saving medications.
Another team is working on electronic polymers that can function as chemical and mechanical sensors. Actuator polymers naturally enable the measurement of pressure and motion. In future soldier systems, electronic polymers can be used to create ultrasensitive sensors for detecting explosives, nerve gas, nitric oxide, and even the DNA of specific biological agents.
Nanotechnology fits into this vision in two important ways. First, it offers the potential for miniaturisation, a key part of reducing weight. Today's hefty radio worn on a harness might be reduced to a button-sized tab on the
collar.
And a waterproof poncho could be replaced by a permanent nano-thin coating applied to everything the soldier carries.
Second, because nano-technology operates at length scales where classical macroscopic physics breaks down, it offers engineers the potential for creating unprecedented new materials properties and devices. Nanotechnology can solve problems that scientists have been struggling with for decades.
Mechanical actuators embedded as part of a soldier's uniform will allow a transformation from a flexible and compliant material to a non-compliant material that becomes armour, thus protecting the soldier by distributing impact. Soft switchable clothing can also be transformed into a reconfigurable cast that stabilises an injury such as a broken leg.
Contracting materials can be made to apply direct pressure to a wound, function as a tourniquet, or even perform CPR when needed. Mechanical actuators can also be used as exo-muscles for augmentation of a soldier's physical strength or agility, and as wound compresses.
From the US military's perspective, death is not an option.
- Sources: MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, Natick Soldier Centre.