Ross-Hime Designs (United States)

This paper describes a design for a man-amplifying exoskeleton, an electrically powered, articulated frame worn by an operator. The design features modular construction and employ anthropomorphic pitch-yaw joints for arms and legs. These singularity-free designs offer a significant advancement over simple pivot-type joints used in older designs. Twenty-six degrees-of-freedom excluding the hands gives the Man-Amplifier its unique dexterity. A five hundred-pound load capacity is engineered for a diverse range of tasks. Potential applications in emergency rescue work, restoring functionality to the handicapped, and military applications ranging from material handling to an elite fighting core are discussed. A bibliography concludes this paper.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">Results are presented regarding the effects of backlighting liquid crystal displays (LCD's) by electroluminescent (EL) lamps and the effects of general ambient lighting. The interest in LCD's with EL backlighting stems from this display concept's compatibility with night vision goggles (NVG's). The results indicate that increased backlighting enhances transflective dichroic LCD readability in contrast to an earlier study utilizing a reflective LCD which concluded that backlighting has an adverse effect.</div>