Debut of a Metal Giant

Seated inside his 11-ft.-tall brainchild, Mechanical Engineer Ralph Mosher moved his legs and arms and sent the 3,000-lb., four-legged mastodon lumbering across the floor at General Electric's Schenectady plant. As Mosher flexed his arms, the monster climbed a stack of heavy timbers to pose like a circus elephant with one foreleg held in the air. A flick of Mosher's wrist swung a 6 1/2-ft. metal leg in an arc and sent the timbers flying. Another flick and the foreleg playfully kicked sand at watching newsmen.

Thus last week, Engineer Mosher introduced CAM, G.E.'s "Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine." Unlike the usual robot, the walking machine has limbs that respond to the actual movements of its human operator's arms and legs. Driven by hydraulic pressure and controlled by servomechanisms, the metal muscles exert far more force than their human counterparts. But they are attached to a sensitive feedback system that gently lets the handler "feel" what the metal limbs are doing.

Although the walking machine is merely a prototype to demonstrate the feasibility of more sophisticated CAMs, neither G.E. nor the Army, for whom they will be made, foresees many technical barriers to more intricate models. The Army has announced that an offshoot is already being constructed--a Jeep-size vehicle with interchangeable mechanical legs and wheels. Approaching completion is a CAM "exoskeleton" of mechanical muscles, which, when worn by an operator, will convert mere man into superman.

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