The U.S. Army Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has commissioned a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS), a suit that will most likely contain “liquid armor,” a substance being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that can change from liquid to solid within milliseconds.
Plans for the suit’s development have been in the works since May of this year. Last month SOCOM issued a request on its official website for ideas from academics, entrepreneurs, engineers, and laboratories as well as the “traditional military industry” about the suit’s capabilities, including advanced armor and enhanced mobility exoskeletons and computer systems. The military has high hopes for the TALOS armor, which can withstand machine-gun fire as well as enhance the wearer’s strength and night vision to superhuman proportions.
TALOS Suit
With the application of an electrical current or a magnetic field in order to shift the armor from liquid to solid, a soldier wearing a TALOS suit will be able to survive an attack from heavy gunfire. The TALOS suits will also be expected to come with their own internal supplies of oxygen, heat, and air, and will contain sensors in order to monitor the soldier’s body temperature, heart rate, body position, and hydration levels.
The armor will also be equipped with complex computer programs that will anticipate the wearers thoughts and strategies and monitor their surrounding environment, in order to display personalized information and data about their circumstances. The TALOS suit is even expected to come equipped with a “wound stasis” program in cause of an unlikely injury, which will monitor the wearer’s health and stop the wound from bleeding by applying a medicinal foam.
The armor’s creation and development is still ongoing, but SOCOM and the world are expecting great things out of this commission, which is sure to revolutionize both the tech and military industries in new and amazing ways.
Sources: Rt.com, Discovery.com
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