How does Tony Stark control the Hulkbuster Suit?

Question

I noticed watching Age of Ultron, when the Hulk and Tony are fighting, that the Hulkbuster suit is much bigger than Tony is.

Obviously in the regular Iron Man suits it fits around his arms and legs and he can move them around using his own limbs.

But from the size of the Hulkbuster suit he must surely only fit inside the torso of the suit.

In Avengers 2

when the Hulk shoves a lamppost through the shoulder of the Hulkbuster suit, the fact that Tony doesn't lose his arm/hand shows that his limbs definitely don't reach that far.

So how does Tony control such a massive suit? It shows the Hulkbuster suit covering his regular suit, so is the smaller inner suit like some sort of controller for the larger outer suit?

I would say maybe the torso is hollow and he's moving around in there and the outer suit is following his movements (Real Steel style), but from the hits he receives from the Hulk the torso would surely cave in if it was hollow.

Is it ever explained in the comics? If not, does anyone have a speculative answer?

Answer 1

Tony stark uses something that's called brain computer interface that translates brain EEG signals to control machines. So if Tony needs to move the suits arm he just needs to think of moving. This technology currently is very slow and not advanced as Tony has but it might get to that level in future. The electrodes of the EEGs are shown in avengers and Iron Man 3 many times.

Answer 2

This makes sense. See the image below of how Tony Stark's Ironman would fit inside the Hulkbuster suit.

Answer 3

Tony has always used a Brain-Computer Interface to use his suits.

The suits limbs are sufficiently heavy that a human hand/leg wouldn't be able to move it by themselves. The suit reads the users brain-waves & accordingly translates them to move the suits parts Exactly as the wearer does.

This sync has been perfected in Tonys suits since Mk1. A lack of this is seen in Iron Man 2, where Justin Hammers suit experiments show up & his suit twists the wearer completely at the hip. This is the result of improper wearer-to-machine translation.

Extrapolating from this, Tony doesn't really need to have his physical limbs placed inside of the suits parts to make them move. Think of it like a very-very-very high tech prosthesis :P

Answer 4

So how does Tony control such a massive suit? It shows the Hulkbuster suit covering his regular suit, so is the smaller inner suit like some sort of controller for the larger outer suit?

It could be hollow if the outer shell was subsequently thick enough, but anyone with enough knowledge on the subject to answer the question would know how big the suit is, and therefore know that in order for there to be room for Tony to swing his arms around, the outer shell of the suit would have to be reasonably thin, which I'm guessing would not be adequate protection.

Why would he need to swing his arms around? You can't swing your arms around indefinitely anyway: you have a fixed range of motion. The suit can simply translate a small motion into a much larger motion. This appears to be how Stane's Iron Monger suit worked in Iron Man.

In reality, I suspect what makes the most sense here is use of the neural control interface introduced in Iron Man 3; now Tony, inside the suit inside the suit, doesn't have to move at all! I can see that being slightly unintuitive to use, but you'd get used to it: Tony certainly did while remotely piloting the Mark 42 from the back of a lorry (as he wasn't exactly running around in there).

Answer 5

The same way, the armour Obadiah Stane uses in Iron Man I is a lot greater than him.

AFAIK there's no such explain on canon, however, from an engineering point of view, probably the suit is something like an exoskeleton projected on a greater size.

Tony would probably get suited in a way very similar to which he is in the "ordinary" armour, but there are lot of servos that traduce his movements to the bigger limbs of the hulkbuster.

Answer 6

Based on the size of the hulk buster and the regular iron man suit, Tony is likely in a sitting position, like a fighter pilot. From the movie we know it is form fitting near the head, so not a large hollow cavity, Pacific Rim style.

Note the Iron Man 3 Air Force 1 Scene. At the end of the scene, Iron Man is in a straight flying position, head tilted up, arms at the side. Then a truck takes him out and it reveals that Tony is in a cramp boat cupboard, arms out like he's holding a pilot stick, face forward. That is, his position doesn't match the suits, so direct physical movement matching is not needed. Brain wave interface does it all.

Finally, even the regular iron man suit can't really move without power, as we also see in Iron Man 3. It weighs alot, and if the servos arnt powered and mmoving in response to user input, they can't be moved, they lock up.