Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton
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The Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) is a robotic device that attaches to the lower body. Its purpose is to complement the user's strength by adding extra force to the user's lower extremity bodily movements. The BLEEX was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and developed by the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, a unit within the University of California, Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering. DARPA provided the initial $50 million of start-up funds in 2001.<ref>Singer, Peter W. "How to Be All That You Can Be: A Look at the Pentagon's Five Step Plan For Making Iron Man Real" Template:Webarchive, The Brookings Institution, 2 May 2008.</ref> The prototype would be demonstrated at the 2004 DARPA Technical Symposium.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Design
The BLEEX has four hydraulically actuated joints: two at the hip, one at the knee, and one at the ankle. Alongside 3 joints consisting of metal springs and elastomers, which give it 7 degrees of freedom.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The BLEEX is energetically autonomous, meaning it has an on-board power supply.<ref name="dollar">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Development later moved to Lockheed Martin, where the device became known as the Human Universal Load Carrier, or HULC.<ref name="ray">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="hulc">Template:Cite web</ref>
Performance
The BLEEX consumes 1143 watts of hydraulic power during ground-level walking along with another 200 watts of electrical power for electronics. It can support a load of Template:Convert while walking at Template:Convert, and can walk at up to Template:Convert without any load.<ref name="dollar" />