Nice innovation - the "floating backpack"

[Pluvious]

While it adds some weight, it greatly reduces impact on your joints and ligaments.

Very cool !!

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/980j17/have_you_ever_seen_a_floating_backpack/

Someone in the comments shared the back story:

Lawrence Rome of the University of Pennsylvania

Because of his expertise in fish muscle and fish swimming, and the Navy's long-term desire to build submersible vehicles which maneuver like fish, Dr. Rome was already in discussions with the Office of Naval Research when in late 2002 they made an unusual request: could he come up with a way to generate electricity from normal human movement? This lay outside of his usual research area, yet the problem was compelling--Special Forces in Afghanistan had to carry twenty pounds of batteries in addition to their 80 lb backpacks to power their GPS, communication equipment and night vision devices, and so generating electricity could greatly reduce this burden. Dr Rome invented the Electricity-generating Suspended-Load Backpack which can generate 1000-fold greater electricity than previous devices (20-40 Watts compared to 20 milliwatts). In Rome's backpack, the load is suspended by springs, and as one walks the load moves up and down with respect to the frame. This movement is used to turn the generator and produce electrical power.

While doing this study Rome observed that this movement also provides an added ergonomic benefit: it reduces the peak forces on the body. If one wears a 50-lb backpack, the static force exerted on the body is equal to 50 lbs, however during walking or running the peak vertical forces acting on the body increase due to the necessary vertical acceleration of the added mass. During fast walking, the peak increases by 70% (e.g., to 85 lb); and during running, it triples to a 150 lbs (Fig 2). Rome invented the Suspended-load ergonomic backpack which greatly reduces the vertical movement of the load with respect to the ground. This in turn reduces the accelerative forces on the body by 82% during walking and 86% during running (Fig 2). Reducing accelerative forces reduces metabolic cost by 40 Watts and increased endurance, or alternately, it permits the carriage of 12 extra lbs for the same metabolic cost (i.e., for free.). Further, it permits running with heavy loads while avoiding orthopedic injury. This ability, as well as electricity-generation, are crucial in many military, emergency/disaster relief and humanitarian missions.

Four US patents have been issued and foreign patents are pending. The development and commercialization of the packs has been moved to a small company, Lightning Packs LLC.


https://www.nature.com/articles/4441023a