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Design

Hollywood Is Helping The Military 3D-Print Real Life Iron Man Suits

The army has enlisted the costume designers behind 'Iron Man' and 'RoboCop' to make a super suit for soldiers.

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Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the military is pairing with Legacy Effects, the production design team behind the costumes of Iron Man, RoboCop, Pacific Rim, and other blockbusters, to build a futuristic Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) for soldiers. In other words, Hollywood and the army are joining forces to build a literal Iron Man-style suit of armor that could include integrated smart glasses, a motorized exoskeleton and computers that share real-time battlefield information. This is yet another example of Hollywood influencing the landscape of real-world tech.

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According to a TALOS Team official (which sounds almost too much like a superhero squad name a la S.H.I.E.L.D), "The broad goals are to provide operators with lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and beyond-optimal human performance." It could be just a matter of time until our military has a handful of Tony Stark-like commanders—a fleet of smart soldiers with computerized clothing who can do all but jet into the skies.

To evaluate prototypes, Legacy Effects is using 3D printers to create concept designs, not dissimilar to how the company 3D-printed the RoboCop suit for the movie's recent reboot. The real Iron Man suit weighs over 400 pounds, so 3D-printing potential gear is a faster, more cost-efficient way to determine if the design are feasible for the army.

Other possible TALOS attributes could include a computerized cooling system, a built-in engine, and antennas for easy communication. "When you're doing something for a movie it is all make-believe," Legacy Effects' founder Lindsay MacGowan told the Wall Street Journal. "Whereas, for the military, that's really not going to be the case."

h/t 3Ders, Wall Street Journal

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