The US Army’s Vision of Soldiers in Exoskeletons Lives On

This newfound push appears to have yielded several fresh experiments with exoskeleton technology in recent years. In 2018, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $6.9 million contract to “enhance” its ONYX exosuit for future Army demonstrations (Accetta, the DEVCOM spokesman, tells WIRED that initiative was ended due to a “number of technical issues” and lack of funding). Similarly, the service has been testing the Dephy ExoBoot for at least the last several years. In August 2022, the Army unveiled an (unpowered) exoskeleton dubbed the Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply (SABER) to reduce lower back pain and physical stress among service members in the field; according to a 2023 study, 90 percent of soldiers who used the exosuit during field artillery training exercises reported an increased ability to perform their assigned tasks. And the Army isn’t the only branch exploring exoskeletons: Later in 2022, the Air Force announced that the service was testing its own pneumatically powered exosuit developed by ROAM Robotics to help aerial porters load up cargo aircraft like the C-17 Globemaster III.

The Fort Sill exoskeleton trial isn’t just the latest installment in a seven-decade push to meld man and machine; it’s also representative of the service’s cautious, restrained approach to the technology. Although US military planners may have long aspired to build an army of those so-called servo soldiers to dominate the future battlefield, current exoskeleton research efforts appear laser focused on more modest and potentially attainable applications like logistics and resupply rather than combat engagements. Slowly but surely, the Pentagon is carefully examining whether a robotic assist will help service members carry more for longer downrange.

But the Pentagon doesn’t appear to have totally given up on its dream of a powered exoskeleton as the basis for an armored battlesuit just yet. The 2017 Army RAS strategy, despite its emphasis on lightening soldier loads, also posited the long-term goal of building a “warrior suit” with “integrated displays that aggregates a common operating picture, provides intelligence updates, and integrates indirect and direct fire weapons systems”—capabilities not unlike those imagined with a notional Starship Troopers mobile infantry or Iron Man suit-clad operator and explored with the TALOS initiative. As of a few years ago, at least one Army official was still talking about such a suit as a long-term effort that could potentially become a reality sometime in the 2040s.

Today, however, that idea appears to be in hibernation, if not fully dead. When asked about the “warrior suit” effort, DEVCOM officials threw cold water on the entire concept as “the professional vision of one person” and “not to be considered (even at the time) as an official Army position,” despite its explicit mention in the 2017 RAS document.

“The ‘warrior suit’ never existed as such, it was never considered a ‘warrior suit’—at least not by the Army—but a proof of concept, meaning, ‘Would something like this help manage load while on the move?’’ Accetta says. “The number of technical, integration, design, power, ergonomic, and so on concerns were not trivial.”

“The project is not abandoned, it’s simply inactive,” he adds. “And if it ever were to become active, we doubt highly it would be called a ‘warrior suit.’”