Businesses Bet on Iron Man-Like Exoskeletons

In the 1960s, the Incredible Hulk rose to fame as Marvel Comics’ green mutant antihero with superhuman strength and some serious anger issues. Now Lockheed Martin is betting that a modern-day hulk—make that HULC—will one day bring it supersize sales. Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, envisions a leap forward in battlefield mobility with its Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC), a wearable exoskeleton intended to let a soldier lug a 200-pound pack with minimal effort over a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) hike. That’s no small feat, since back strain is the military’s most common noncombat injury because of the heavy packs soldiers carry. Exoskeletons hold “tremendous potential” to ease those burdens, says David Accetta, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center, in an e-mail. The Army is planning a field demonstration of the device in May, and the HULC device is being refined to be more easily worn under a uniform. Neither Lockheed nor the Army would disclose funding details.