From "Captain America" Steve Rogers, Sanger Winton in "Remake Warrior" to Jim Reynolds in "StarCraft", physical and combat skills are different from ordinary people. The subject of relish in nuclear science fiction film and television literature. Recently, a technology outlook report from the US Department of Defense made an astonishing prediction: Such a "super warrior" may step out of science fiction movies and game screens around 2050 and be truly active on the battlefield.
Future Semi-Mechanical Biochemical Warrior Imagination
In this report entitled "Super Biochemical Warrior 2050", the US Department of Defense's "Human Performance and Health Biological Applications" Technical Committee (BHPC) will enhance the physical performance of combatants and integrate with the human body in the next 30 years Cutting-edge technology for forecasting and evaluation.
Cyborg, also known as cyborg, was first proposed by NASA biological and neuroscientist Manfred Kleins in the 1960s. Kleins believes that ordinary astronauts are difficult for future long-distance space exploration. Therefore, biomechanical engineering technology must be applied to human body transformation so that astronauts can complete their work more effectively in extreme environments.
The report states that today, as humans are about to usher in leaps and bounds in the fields of genetic engineering, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, microelectronics, and artificial intelligence, the concept of "biochemical man" is about to become a reality. The "biochemical fighters" who have undergone transformation will also reshape the future of war.
Eagle eyes, wolf ears
So, where is the "Super Biochemical Warrior" powerful? You may have watched an American cartoon called "Bresta Sheriff" as a kid. The law enforcement officer on the planet of New Texas has "eagle eyes, wolf ears, leopard speed, bear power", The BHPC envisioned super soldiers, like Sheriff Bresta, have sharper senses and better physical fitness.
Bristol Sheriff's super powers can be obtained through body modification in the future
First, let's take a look at the super eyesight of Super Soldier. At night, it is an insurmountable obstacle for soldiers on the battlefield. Although night vision equipment is now commonly equipped, its vision and functions are still limited and heavy inconvenience. The future super soldiers will still have the vision to penetrate the night mist in the dark, and the surrounding environment will be restored to daylight by their eyes. So how do you do this? The answer given by Ted Norris, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, is "super contact lenses": its raw material is graphene, which has two layers, with an insulating layer in the middle. The graphene material is impacted by measuring infrared light. The photoelectric effect is emitted to "perceive" the light.
The specially treated graphene material can work normally at normal temperature and can be reduced to the size of a nail cover, so it can be easily integrated into contact lenses and other small wearable electronic devices.
Infrared and ultraviolet light-sensing particles attached to mouse retinal cells
However, the technical experts are not satisfied. After all, the "super contact lens" is still an "external" device. Another group of experts has been discussing the future night vision by directly "reforming" human eyeballs. Photosensitive particles "inject" the eyeballs.
Recently, scientists have successfully experimented with mice and successfully injected a nanoparticle with a diameter of about 38 nanometers that can convert long-wavelength infrared light into short-wavelength visible light and injected it into the photoreceptor cells of mice. The "night vision" ability around the day did not cause other side effects. Because the sensitivity of such particles is still insufficient to allow mice to sense continuous and clear infrared images, BHPC expects that material problems will be initially resolved around 2030, and large-scale human surgery tests will be available around 2050.
America's next generation TCPS device with both communication and hearing protection
Under the harsh combat conditions, only the sharp eagle eyes can not fully understand the rapidly changing battlefield information. The hearing of the soldiers is also important, and they need to have "wolf ears". The specific solution is a cochlear implant hearing enhancement device developed based on bone conduction earphone technology, which enables the wearer to "listen" to infrasound waves and ultrasonic waves in the environment, and effectively protects hearing damage from battlefield noise.
According to 2012 US Department of Defense statistics, approximately 6% of veterans have hearing impairments of varying degrees. To this end, the U.S. Army is developing the next-generation tactical communication and protection system (TCPS), which is a modular single-arm communication system with basic hearing protection. Earphones made of composite materials can effectively reduce the number of soldiers. Hearing damage from vehicle noise and the noise of battlefield weapon explosions.
Based on this, researchers hope to be able to integrate hearing "sharpening" functions in TCPS. According to the report, what is most likely to be used is the next generation of bone-conducting cochlear technology, which can convert external sound waves, including infrasound waves and ultrasound waves, into digital signals, which are then transmitted to a receiver located in the inner ear and converted into electrical pulses, which directly "notify" Auditory nerve without damaging the ear canal and eardrum.
Speed of leopard, power of bear
With "Eagle's Eyes" and "Wolf's Ears", let's look at how Super Soldiers get "Panther's Speed" and "Bear's Power". In many sci-fi works, the super soldier's divine power is obtained by injecting various synthetic drugs, or by wearing magical armor, such as Captain America and the good base friend Iron Man. The real super soldier may use these two methods at the same time, one inside and one outside, to make his body function surpass ordinary people.
Specifically, this "internal and external mutual aid" power-enhancing technique can be split into two parts. The first is to inject special gene-edited muscle cells into soldiers or install soft robots. Devin Neal, a PhD in machine engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that skeletal muscle cells are extremely sensitive to light signals and can use light signals to precisely control its movement. So he envisioned that a batch of 3D printed genetically modified muscle cells, as well as soft robots, would be precisely implanted into the human musculoskeletal neuromuscular junction, and external light signal transmission technology would precisely control the movement of skeletal muscle cells.
Muscle performance enhancement function soft robot imagination diagram, consisting of light-sensing receiving unit, artificial skeletal muscle cell line, and flexible enhanced artificial bone supported by composite material
In the laboratory, Neil successfully 3D printed a mouse skeletal muscle cell line that had been genetically edited to respond directly to fluorescent signals and had no negative side effects. Skeletal muscle cell lines organized in different structures can quickly respond to external light signals after implantation, improving muscle response speed and expressiveness. BHPC predicts that by about 2030, we will be able to successfully synthesize enhanced human skeletal muscle cell lines and cooperate with a set of optogenetics sensing tights to form a muscle strengthening and control system.
At that time, this smart tights will send signals to the artificial skeletal muscle cell lines built into the underside of the wearer's muscles and near the nerve bundles through light pulse points scattered on the inside of the tights. These muscle cell lines can be implanted in soft robots. With the help of the wearer, it can help the wearer achieve rapid recovery of muscle fatigue and strength enhancement. Through the built-in smart chip of the tights, the technicians can even “program” the body movements. Through specific combination of light signals, the movements such as aiming and shooting become fixed muscle memory, which is faster and more accurate to execute, and can be used to treat soldiers. Some permanent impairment of body function.
Modern Ordinary Soldier VS "Future Warrior"
Smart tights solve the problem of physical enhancement, but have not solved another big problem-protection, which requires another partner, the military personal exoskeleton system to help. The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the "Enhancement of Human Physical Exoskeleton (EHPA)" program in 2000. Today, many technology companies have come up with prototype products, such as Thor's full-body structural exoskeleton XOS And Lockheed Martin's Human Exoskeleton Weighting System (HULC).
Raytheon XOS2, a full-body structural exoskeleton
These products are powered by their own engines, in addition to providing basic protection for soldiers' bodies, they also enhance their ability to carry loads and pass through complex terrain. In addition, the aiming stability of the handgun exoskeleton (MAXFAS) is also under development. It comes with an accelerometer and a gyroscope, which can help soldiers to bear the weight of a hand-held light weapon while automatically correcting the soldier's offset movement during shooting. .
Firearms aimed at stabilized mobile exoskeleton (MAXFAS)
Crush you with IQ
Of course, if only the outstanding senses, strength and speed are still a reckless husband. Future high-tech military conflicts require smarter soldiers. So the third weapon BHPC prepares for the future super biochemical warrior is the neural enhancement device implanted in the brain. By then, using advanced brain-computer interface technology, soldiers not only have more sensitive thinking and response, but also can use ideas to directly manipulate weapons and transportation vehicles, and even achieve instant communication between individual soldiers.
As early as 2015, the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Program Administration (DARPA) launched an advanced research project abbreviated as TNT (Directed Nerve Shaping Training), which aims to promote pituitary secretion by accurately implanting electrodes into the learning area of the brain Specific pheromone to improve learning analysis and memory. This very "junior" brain-computer connection technology still has broad application prospects, which can greatly shorten the period and investment of personnel training for military high-tech positions. Doug Webber, head of the DARPA "TNT" project and neurobiological research expert, said that the ultimate goal in the future is to try to turn the human brain into an ERROM (erasable) that can directly input information and skills through peripheral devices Programmable ROM).
This idea has been partially realized by the Silicon Valley geek tycoon Elon Musk's technology innovation company "Neuralink". The goal of Neuralink's early stage is to implant electrodes and microchip N1 sensors into the human brain through a surgical robot code-named "sewing machine". The current will activate those neurons in the disorder and disorder, thereby curing the human body caused by neurological disorders. Dysfunction. Not only that, experts from the University of Arizona have already stimulated mouse brain neurons through electrical current in experiments, successfully improving their hearing and accelerating their neural response speed. According to estimates in the BHPC's "Super Biochemical Warrior" report, within 10 years, scientists will begin to target the peripheral nervous system (such as the trigeminal and sympathetic nerves) to externally intervene in the human brain to strengthen thinking ability experiments. By 2050, the first batch of super soldiers with a brain-computer interface, similar to Kusanagi Suko in Ghost in the Shell, will be on the battlefield.