AirLegs Augment Your Cardio By 10%

Pneumatic leg assistance

Here’s another very interesting project to come out of the 4 Minute Mile challenge — pneumatically boosted legs.

It’s another project by [Jason Kerestes] in cooperation with DARPA. We saw his jet pack a few days ago, but this one looks like it has a bit more promise. It is again a backpack mounted system, but instead of a few jet turbines, it has a pneumatic cylinders which move your legs for you.

Just watching it it’s hard to believe it makes it easier to run, but apparently after being tested at the Army Research Laboratories last year it demonstrated a whopping 10% reduction in metabolic cost for subjects running at high speeds. It can actually augment the human running gait cycle, and is the only device the US Army has confirmed can do so.

He is already hard at work designing version 2.0 which is lighter and more flexible. There’s a bunch of test videos after the break so stick around to see it in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2e4tGokqe0

And the new and improved version 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5EXYlrnXk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q350TeTFvWU

 

36 thoughts on “AirLegs Augment Your Cardio By 10%

      1. And they are some of the most dangerous things you could really operate or use on a daily basis, particularly cars which kill more people than guns each year (at least domestically in most countries).

  1. My idea for DARPA, a running training program for soldiers codenamed ’30 minutes of running a day’. Under this program soldiers will run 30 minutes a day, i will need 40 million dollars and top secret security clearance. Thank you.

  2. Do these somehow preform better than the more complete exoskeletons?

    Spring steel like shafts connecting a metal boot plate to the pelvis, pelvis to neck frame for added support of the weight, and then adding possible pneumatic/jet accessories.

    Seems a full frame allows an increase speed, agility, and endurance while increasing the size of possible payload and future upgrades.

    1. Best of it is that a lot of it are cost plus contracts. You get a fixed amount of money plus whatever extra unforeseen costs there are, until they decide to cancel the project. Some projects are canceled immediately (very likely if it was accepted just before a new president is elected), so you get the fixed amount basically for doing nothing.

      There is a law Obama made that requires a certain amount of defense contracts to be given to small businesses.

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