Five incredible robotic suits that prove Tony Stark technology will be here in your lifetime

I work with disabled people five days a week. Seeing technologies like the ones that I'm about to show you not only blow my mind, but tell me that HALO isn't all that far into our future. Cue Master Chief...

Aside from just looking really f'ing cool, the HALO armor is just the evolution
of technologies we are seeing today. Technologies that could quite possibly
make any of us "superhuman." As an aside note, HALO is being brought to
the silver screen by Steven Spielberg. Does that excite you? It should.

Without further ado, here are five incredible robotic suits that prove Tony Stark technology will be here in your lifetime:

The Lockheed Martin HULC

1) Lockheed Martin is a defense technology developer (basically they are the real Stark Industries), and they've developed an exoskeleton fit for the battlefield called a Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC). As an aside note, I think it's awesome that the letters almost spell "HULK" as in "your favorite green muscle dude with anger management problems." The HULC can divert up to 200 pounds in weight through powered titanium legs while allowing the user to move freely. Lockheed claims that a fully laden soldier will retain the ability to march at 3 mph and even break into 10 mph sprints while wearing the battery powered HULC. The system is designed to reduce stress on the leg and back muscles and comes with a lift assist device attachment that allows a soldier to safely lift heavy loads with the strength of two or more men.

Cyberdyne HAL-5

2) Japanese firm Cyberdyne used its robot suits as the disaster-fighting protection of the future during the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011. It is the first personal exoskeleton robot to receive a global safety certificate. Thus far, 330 of these things have been leased to hospitals across Japan where they are used to assist patients with muscle weakness or disabilities due to stroke and spinal cord injuries. The suit interprets faint electrical signals in the skin around damaged muscles and moves the motorized joints in response. Cool eh?

Muscle Suit by Kobalab

3) Kobayashi Labs' Muscle Suit replaces electronic actuator motors with a system of inflatable pneumatic "artificial muscles" to help nurses or care workers carry elderly or ill patients. It currently allows users to support 110 pounds with ease, carrying it with fixed arms like a walking forklift. Think of James Cameron's Aliens and the machine that Ripley uses at the end to fight the xenomorph.

The Ekso by Ekso Bionics

4) Ekso Bionics created the "Ekso" to give paraplegics upright mobility. The man in this photo is paralyzed from the waist down, and he can walk with the assistance of the "Ekso." I think that is just mind-blowing as I work with a quadriplegic who has been confined to his chair for 24 years, and things like this are giving him hope that he may be able to walk again in his lifetime. The commercial version of the Ekso has recently been made available to hospitals and rehab centers and the company hopes to have a personal version available as soon as 2014. The company claims that the Ekso weighs 50 pounds, but the one wearing it doesn't feel the weight at all. It has 4 electric motors and 15 sensors that recreate your nervous system and tie it into a computer that serves as the brain.

Chiropractor Claire Lomas used the Argo ReWalk to become the first
person to complete a marathon in a bionic exoskeleton at the London
Marathon in May 2012. Please note that this happened five years after
a horseriding accident left her paralyzed from the chest down.

5) The Argo ReWalk (pictured above on Claire Lomas) is already commercially available for $65,000, and it enables people with spinal cord injuries to walk again and can now claim 220 trained users around the world.

It's a great world we are living in. Technology, science, and human engineering are turning the imaginations of those of us who write science fiction into reality with each passing day. Superhuman is now becoming a question of "when" and not "if." Have a great weekend and remember to be inspired. :)

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If Tony Stark were real I think he would look a lot like Richard Branson

One week ago, Iron Man 3 came out and sucked up all the money in the world (or at least a good portion of it). Despite some of the misgivings I had regarding the poorly done adaptation of the Mandarin from comic book to film, I did leave the theater once again in awe of the absolute wealth wielded by Tony Stark. For example, I loved his Malibu home. It's incredible and decorated exactly how I like: bold, new, and contemporary. I love his fast cars, snarky "screw it, let's do it" attitude, and I admire the way he could have all of his toys completely destroyed and it doesn't stress him out one bit. Seriously. It's because he's got so much money, he could care less. That in itself is just awesome. When a person reaches that level of success, they literally have "F U Money," a term I coined to describe the fact that you are "beholdin'" to no one in the world.

I can't even imagine being able to say these lines (but it would be cool if I could): "Eh? My $100 million dollar house got blown up? Dangit. Pepper get another one built while I go on vacation to Catalina. And schedule me a massage, and buy me a new fleet of cars. Those other ones were the wrong color anyway."

So I started to think? Is this at all realistic? Are there real life men out there that wield this kind of wealth and power? Yep. The first person that comes to mind is Richard Branson of Virgin Group fame.

Richard is British, so that automatically puts him in the group of men on which James Bond may be modeled, and he's got a brand that's both sounds sexy and simultaneously houses more than 250 companies. Under the Virgin umbrella you'll find travel, publishing, mobile phone service, wine vineyards, health clubs, etc. He owns the world's first commercial spacecraft under Virgin Galactic giving ordinary people like you and me the opportunity to see space for a mere $200,000 a ticket. He owns his own island, offers millions of dollars in prize money to "green" projects that have to do with removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and has plans to travel to the deepest points of all five oceans via Virgin Oceanic.

So yea, I think if Tony Stark were real he would look a lot like Richard Branson. It also begs the question (because I'm a writer), when you write about a larger than life character, do you model it after someone in real life?

Did I make my case? Agree? Disagree? Leave your opinions in the comments and have a great weekend :)

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