EXOSKELETONS FOR HUMAN PERFORMANCE AUGUMENTATION (EHPA) WORKSHOP Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA) Workshop, SN00-09. The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is sponsoring an unclassified Teaming Workshop for a new DARPA program on Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA). This workshop will be held on March 1-3, 2000, at the Hyatt Dulles, 2300 Dulles Corner Blvd., Herndon, VA 20171. The primary objective of EHPA is to develop capabilities to increase human physical performance. Mechanically augmenting the speed, strength, and endurance of the ground soldier will lead to enhanced survivability and new mission capabilities. This workshop will precede a forthcoming DARPA Broad Agency Announcement on human performance augmentation. The goals of this workshop are to familiarize participants with the upcoming DARPA program and to promote the exchange of technical information and capabilities among the meeting participants, which may facilitate collaborations among researchers from technically diverse backgrounds. Participants are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to present their work, ideas, and insights. A number of researchers from the Defense of Defense community will participate in the meeting and it will be an excellent time to gain insight into the customer's needs, wants, requirements, and perspectives. Note: TEAMING OPPORTUNITIES WILL BE PROVIDED THROUGHOUT THIS CONFERENCE AND DURING THE PROPOSAL PHASE OF THE PROGRAM. Major technical objectives of this workshop include identifying user needs and, when possible, defining requirements for appropriate components and systems to enable exoskeletal devices, as well as identifying issues associated with current, relevant technologies. Technical areas, which are critical to achieving working exoskeletons that are of operational significance to the military, are of particular interest for this workshop. The technical issues for exoskeleton design include: power storage/generation, power efficiency and power management; actuation and instrumentation, as well as the control and physical design issues associated with the creation of a seamless human and machine interface. To address some of the workshop goals the opening plenary session will be devoted to a discussion of potential requirements and applications by the military. The rest of the meeting will consist of technical presentations to showcase capabilities and facilitate formation of teams. Participants are strongly encouraged to prepare a short summary/overview on any applicable technologies. Please e-mail a one page abstract (pdf format only) of the technology that you would like to present by January 31, 2000 to sowerl@sainc.com. You may also send a short movie (less than a minute) in MPEG or AVI format to highlight the relevancy of the technology. An agenda will be distributed before the meeting. Please contact Dr. Ephrahim Garcia at (703) 696-2229 or egarcia@darpa.mil, if you have any technical questions. A registration fee for this conference will be determinedsoon. Registration and additional information (directions, hotels, agenda, etc.) on this conference may be found at http://www.sainc.com/darpa/exo/index. The administrative point of contact for this effort is Ms. Leslie Sowers at sowerl@sainc.com. If you are interested in attending the workshop please fill out and submit the registration form by February 7, 2000. Funding for this multi-year program is expected to be substantial. However, this announcement and workshop are NOT a request for proposals. No solicitation document is available at this time; and DARPA, this conference not withstanding, reserves the right to have no solicitations on this subject. Posted 01/06/00 (W-SN413723).

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