Future Tech: Robotic Soldier Suits

Lamont Drechsel is a mild-mannered mechanical engineer, but right now he looks like the violent offspring of G.I. Jane and Robocop. Clad in camouflage fatigues, he is strapped into a Plexiglas framework hinged at his elbows, hips, and other joints to follow his movements. He kneels, stretches, and casts menacing glances around a machine shop at Sarcos, the Salt Lake City, Utah, engineering firm that made the apparatus. "It's surprisingly comfortable," he says, breaking into a grin. "I feel like I can do pretty much whatever I want."