A Suction Ascender for Special Forces to Scale Walls

Grappling hooks can get you up a vertical wall. But U.S. special forces are looking for something better. "These teams are often required to carry hundreds of pounds of gear, making traditional climbing methods strenuous and dangerous," Lt. Col. David Shahady of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) tells PM.

Last August, students from 17 universities and the three armed forces academies were each given $20,000 and tasked with creating a superior vertical ascender for the annual AFRL Design Challenge. After nine months of effort, the teams came together this spring to put their hardware to the test at Calamityville, the National Center for Medical Readiness training facility at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio. The goal: get four special ops personnel over a 90-foot sheer concrete face with innovative climbing equipment. The winner among the universities: Utah State University and its suction solution.

The team?s "sucking ascender" is made from hand pads that can stick to the wall through battery-powered suction. The Personnel Vacuum Assisted Climber, or PVAC, can stick a soldier weighing up to 200 pounds along with 100 pounds of his or her gear to a vertical, or even horizontal, wall or rock face.

Twin electric motors worn on the soldier?s back generate 3.5 pounds per square inch of sucking power. Footrests attached to the pads with cables support the soldier?s weight while he or she shifts the pads, one at a time, to climb up. Rechargeable batteries can run the PVAC for up to half an hour?plenty of time to get over just about any size wall.

At about 45 pounds, the Utah State system is on the heavy side. But it more than makes up for it in sucking power. Shahady, the lead judge for the event, was impressed. "Utah State University traded weight for the innovative ?Wow!? factor," he says. The winner of the service academy side of the competition was the U.S. Air Force Academy with a gun-fired rope anchor that attaches itself to the top of the wall by means of an explosive charge. Second place among the universities was the University of Minnesota at Duluth?s entry, which uses vacuum suction to get a robot to the top of the wall, where it sets an anchor for ropes.

Speedy climbing helped the "Ascending Aggies" win the prize. Steve Hansen, faculty adviser to the team and engineering research professor at Utah State, says the students did tests on campus with both team members and students from Utah State?s ROTC. "Both climbers were able to climb the 40-foot-high engineering building in about 45 seconds," he says.

The team?s task now is to modify the design and make a lighter and stealthier version that?s closer to something spec ops forces could use in the field. "The current prototype is quite loud," Hansen says. "In the second version [we] will look for technology to reduce or cancel the noise." The team has been invited to submit a proposal to the AFRL for an additional $100,000 grant, which could help get them over that particular wall.

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