The 4MM jetpack won’t send its wearer aloft, and given the general state of jetpack technology, maybe that’s a good thing. The pack, developed by engineers at Arizona State University with funding from DARPA, will instead make them faster on the ground.
The “4MM” refers to “four-minute mile,” a benchmark time for professional runners that remains far out of sight for most anyone else. The 4MM project’s goal is to enabling anyone (any solider) to beat the four-minute threshold by providing just an extra boost.
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“We were developing robots that could assist amputees,” said Thomas Sugar, a researcher at ASU’s Human Machine Integration Lab, in a statement. “And DARPA came back to us and asked if we could develop robots that could assist able-bodied people, and make them able to run faster or do things they couldn’t do.”
In 200-meter trials, the jetpack shaved three seconds off the best time of one test subject, which becomes a bit more impressive when you consider the extra 12 pounds of jetpack weight. The rummer also experienced a corresponding decrease in metabolic load (energy burned.) That said, it still seems a bit academic. Is three seconds and a bit of saved energy worth carting one of these things around?
Maybe.
Jason Kerestes, the 4MM “mastermind,” noted, “if you think of a Navy SEAL or a soldier that must get in somewhere quickly —and get out just as quickly.”
