As combat sports continue to grow in popularity, and MMA style fighting inevitably gives way to something closer to full blown Thunderdome, there arises a need to protect the combatants so they can live on to fight again. The logical next step for combat sports seems to be weapon based arena combat, so creating a suit of battle armor seems like a good place to start.
Enter the Lorica, a lightweight yet extremely durable suit of combat armor that can withstand weapon strikes, so fighters don’t have to hold back in the ring. This "pretty much is Batman" suit of armor was created by Unified Weapons Master, a company that hopes their suits will kick start the next generation of martial arts competition.
Here's more on this amazing combat gear:
It's made from a blend of lightweight, flexible materials and comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a point-of-view camera, a microphone and 52 pressure sensors that send data to an external computer program.
The idea? To let martial artists compete at full speed with weapons in much the way bare-fisted fighters currently do in mixed-martial arts competitions such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
-Via Geekologie