Any
science fiction nerd out there has played (or at least heard of) the “Halo:
Combat Evolved” series created by game developer Bungie in 2000. The video game
took the first person shooter world by storm, quickly becoming one of the most
beloved franchises in the community, spawning several sequels, spin-offs, and
millions of dollars in merchandising apparel. Master Chief is a fictional icon
of hulking super soldier badassery. But are we actually closer to our very own
Master Chief’s now than the game’s 2550 timeline? Like we did with Iron Man a
few weeks ago, let’s see if we can’t separate fact from fiction here. We’ll
start with the obvious ones first.
Cortana…Artificial
Intelligence
If
will could make it so than millions of fan-boys worldwide would have already
brought Cortana into constitution. Alas, it doesn’t work like that. How it does work is teams of scientists all
over the world are working on the Singularity. One such man, Ross D. King,
professor of computer science at Aberystwyth University, has created something
fairly close to artificial intelligence. His name is Adam. What makes Adam
special and separates him from other computers? His ability to think like a
human scientist.
Adam
is able to throw together a hypothesis, but it doesn't just stop there, using
reasoning and all the information available to him he is able to create
experiments to test these hypotheses. What’s even more incredible, are the
results, “To say that Adam just possesses information and processes it would be a vast understatement. Adam is able to use logic statements to represent the knowledge it has acquired. It then rationalizes and channelizes these interactions with the physical world. “Adam generated and experimentally confirmed 20 hypotheses about which genes encode specific enzymes in yeast. Like all scientific claims, Adam’s needed to be confirmed. We therefore checked Adam’s conclusions using other sources of information not available to it and using new experiments we did with our own hands. We determined that seven of Adam’s conclusions were already known, one appeared wrong and 12 were novel to science.”” -
Now
does that mean Adam is capable of hacking into an alien ship while monitoring
the vitals of Spartan John 117, while stealing information and analyzing data
from hundreds of computers on a planet simultaneously…more than likely not.
Honestly we are still a long way off from an A.I. capable of that kind of
function, but Adam is proof that we’re officially on the right track to
simulating human reasoning.
Shields Up Spartans!
Who
can forget hopping online in the Saturday afternoon to play your buddies across
the pond in a friendly match of Free-For-All? After almost getting stuck with
the plasma grenade and narrowly escaping death several times you have to jump
behind a big rock. You switch to your pistol and stare down the scope as you
wait for your shield to recharge so you can run back into the fray, a portable
med-kit randomly laying on the ground nearby wouldn’t hurt either.
The
med-kit is neither here nor there, the shield however, is what we’re going to
discuss next.
The
image above is from T.A.Heppenheimer’s book “Colonies in Space.” What you are looking at folks is a
proposed plasma shield to block the cosmic radiation from reaching the colonists
and causing ill advisable health effects. Wonderful thought, however it was
written in 1977 originally, we barely understood how electrons acted in space,
and under conditions not that of Earth’s. The book, while delightful, to me
seems more Science Fiction than Science Fact, but isn’t that what we’re doing
here? Separating fact from fiction?
Truth
is, from that quirky design above we have come full circle. Turns out, in
development is a piece of technology called PASS (PlasmaAcoustic Shield System) and what it does it utterly incredible. Using
lasers it sends out a series of plasma explosions to detonate or deflect
incoming projectiles from hitting the user. This sounds different from MJOLNIR
but it should because right NOW it isn’t the same, but once again, it is certainly a step in the right direction.
And
try not confuse PASS with the overhyped Trophy “Force Field” developed by Israel.
You can read more about that blunder here… http://defensetech.org/2006/04/27/so-much-for-force-fields/
Systems Breakdown
(All The Working Parts)
According
to what I understand of the Halo fiction, aside from biological engineering for
the soldiers and the two topics we discussed above, there are several other key
components of the MJOLNIR armor. Those are:
1.
The
HUD (Heads Up Display)
2.
Secondary
ballistics protection
3.
Insulation,
Cooling, Biometric Scanners (For vital signs)
4.
Increased
mobilization and movement assistance through the suit.
We
are working on Heads Up Displays, and are actually pretty far along with the
technology. If you want to know more about their functionality in aircraft and
on the smaller scale of soldiers in combat, Wikipedia has an excellent page
with a wealth of information dedicated to the HUD. For the purposes
of this blog we’ll just say it’s where it needs to be and Revision, a military
development company, is working on a modular helmet that will incorporate the
technology, and it could not look more reminiscent to the Chief himself:
What
about secondary ballistics protection? (Aside from his plasma shield of course)
I mean…nobody can take a bullet like a Spartan right?? Right??? Well, not
necessarily. Turns out a few years back there was a big debacle with the U.S.
military and its troops using body armor bought from civilian manufacturers and
not Uncle Sam himself. TheDragon Skin armor, as seen in the video if you follow the link, is capable
of not only withstanding a ton of
gunfire, but after that, if the need arises, a soldier can jump on top of a
live grenade. He’ll still most likely die from internal organ damage, but it
sure won’t be because the grenade ripped through his Kevlar and cut him in
half.
But
we can’t have a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his squad and still die, that doesn’t seem right, and
America isn’t known for supporting its martyrs. So how do we shield the body, beneath
the shield and the super armor? There are two ways to reinforce the Kevlar,
Shear-Thickening Fluid or Magnetorheological Fluid. Let’s explore both of these
a little bit.
1.
Shear-Thickening Fluid: STF behaves like a liquid until it
is struck forcefully. At which points all the molecules in it quickly bind
together forming an almost impermeable solid barrier. This colloid (cornstarch
& water behave similarly) creates a lightweight alternative to the many
layers typically needed in a Kevlar vest.
2.
Magnetorheological Fluid: Like STF this behaves like a liquid
that turns into a solid as well but the similarities end there. MF is comprised
of oil and iron particles that rely on an electric current in order to ender
solid-state.
Both
are very different solutions to the same problems and neither are without their
drawbacks. You can read more about both and a lot more about LBA over at How Stuff Works
with their wonderfully written article about it.
We
have biometric scanners (EKG, pulse monitors, etc.) and we even have scaled
down ones that would be perfect for this suit. Obviously cooling fans and
insulation have come a long way in the past thirty years with computers
becoming smaller scale and much more efficient that these wouldn’t even be an
issue. But what about the exoskeleton that made the Master Chief move superfast?
That made him super strong? What about that stuff!?
Calm
down before you have a nerdgasm. I have some really great news for you. As
usual the Japanese have developed some truly amazing technology. The latest
advancement in assisted living is HAL (Hybrid Assisted Limb). HAL is an
exoskeleton powered by the user’s nerve function that has been granted the
prestige of being recognized as a fully-fledged medical device. Take a look at
HAL below:
And
it’s not just for paraplegics and medical uses. There are reports of the
Japanese using modified HAL suits to clean up after the tragic Fukushima
nuclear reactor spill. They may not grant the user the super strength of John
117 himself, but that isn’t the intention of these particular suits, but once
again, it is a step in the right
direction.
I’m
sure there are other components I’m missing that go into the MJOLNIR Mark V
armor but what it’s important is that the core technology is coming along.
Right now if all these devices and individual pieces of tech were combined into
one super suit the end result with be bulky, cumbersome, and most likely
unusable. But who knows, in ten years since the release of Halo (which by and
far was likely not the developers intentions of these gizmos) we have come this
far along. Maybe in another ten years we’ll have this stuff scaled down, and
maybe even our own personal Cortana’s! I would certainly love to report on
that.
You’re
dismissed Spartan.
-Ryan
Sanders
No comments:
Post a Comment