Iron Man's fictional tech may soon become real. Inside a mountain lab, researchers have already built motorized suits that give ordinary people superhuman strength.

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// found at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm.

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We've told you all about the Raytheon Sarcos XOS exoskeleton, the smart suit of armor that endows its wearer with super-human strength. Now see it in action, and meet the minds behind both Iron Men—real, and imaginary.

Afghanistan. A hidden bunker. Four men with rifles guard a thick, rusted steel door. Bam! A huge fist pounds against it—from inside. Bam! More blows dent the steel. The hinges strain. The guards cower, inching backward. Whatever's trying to break out is big. And angry.

Since the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, protecting docked ships-both military and commercial-has been a big priority in the fight against terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security has already awarded $489 million to help guard the nation´s ports, spurring a number of innovative ideas, the latest of which is an underwater system that blasts enemy swimmers with painful acoustic waves. Patented by the Raytheon Corporation last October, the system is the brainchild of former Navy and Raytheon acoustics expert Frederick Di Napoli. His scheme is simple: Generate a region of high-pressure, low-frequency sound around the ship, creating a sort of sonic fence that â€shocks†anything that swims through it. Although a diver would probably flee from pain, Di Napoli says, "you could really dial up the pressure and make it lethal if you had to."