from the see-the-chameleon-lying-there-in-the-sun dept.
This Active Camouflage Technology Could Change The Future Of Warfare - SlashGear:
H. G. Wells's "The Invisible Man" brought the idea of invisibility to the mainstream over a century ago. Not long after, the fascination with invisibility became a hot trope in fantasy and sci-fi stories. Scientists have also been at work, trying to materialize their invisibility dreams with tech. Virginia-based defense and aerospace company BAE Systems is yet another player in the invisibility tech race, creating a camouflage system called ADAPTIV.
BAE System's secret sauce to creating invisibility (in infrared, at least) is a cloaking device capable of hiding equipment as large as a military tank and helping them blend with natural surroundings. ADAPTIV seeks to conceal the infrared signature of objects by allowing them to copy the temperature of nearby objects. BAE Systems says its tech can make things such as military vehicles look like a harmless cow, a mound of rocks, or shrubs.
A fruit of three years of research, ADAPTIV isn't a do-it-all invisibility tech that can hide something as heavy as a rocket-raining chopper or a truck from the naked eye. Instead, the tech targets invisibility for infrared sensors, especially for "peacekeeping operations" conducted in urban and remote areas like deserts and forests.
ADAPTIV aims to counter the detection capabilities of infrared sensors in hostile scenarios. Infrared sensors are widely deployed for reliable motion detection, especially in challenging light scenarios. In addition to mapping distances, the most significant advantage of using infrared detectors is their ability to read heat signatures, especially of suspicious objects that may not be a natural part of their immediate environment.
[...] ADAPTIV isn't trying to cancel infrared observations with specialized thermal cloaking tech. Instead, it tries to trick infrared sensors by making them see a different object, like altering the thermal profile of a tank and making it look like a huge harmless rock.
That infrared sorcery is achieved using a layer of hexagonal plates that looks like a honeycomb pattern when plastered over the surface of an object that needs to be hidden from the infrared sensors of the enemy. These modules, as BAE Systems describes, can be heated or cooled quickly to adapt to the temperature of the surroundings. But the surface heating is controlled so that the covered surface area creates the infrared visage of a harmless object.
Journal Reference:
Tao Hou, Sicen Tao, Haoran Mu, et al. Invisibility concentrator based on van der Waals semiconductor α-MoO3 [open], Nanophotonics (DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2021-0557)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by anubi on Sunday April 30, @04:53AM (2 children)
Geez, we're talking a tad over a megawatt thermal for an Abrams tank! You can't "make" cold. Best we can do is move heat from one place to another. Without heat exchangers, where are they putting the heat?
Or are we doing an electric battery powered model hundreds of miles from a charging station?
This isn't a lithium powered tank ( 40 seconds ).
Phosphorous RPG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6pTPYx-bLk [youtube.com]
Compare to a 1 megawatt EV fire. ( And that would be less than an hour runtime for equivalent to an Abrams class tank ).
How about a nice game of chess?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday April 30, @06:05AM
But, as you acknowledge, you can move energy around from one place to another - my fridge, freezer and ice cream maker have been doing it for years.
They are moving it a few metres so that the shape that the infra red signature creates doesn't look like the actual object that is creating the heat. They do not claim that they can hide a MBT going at full tilt generating that megawatt of heat. But there are lots of other objects that could benefit from being mistaken for something else. Mobile artillery or missile launchers for example. They say quite clearly that:
For example, the pilot of an attacking aircraft has a very limited amount of time to acquire, identify and engage a ground target.
Now I don't know exactly what those hexagon panels are doing to achieve this - they are not saying - but they state that it is meant to disguise the object and does not confer true invisibility upon it. Any ephemeral doubt in the minds of an enemy is worth exploiting. Whether this is a cost-effective way of achieving it and how effective it actually is, we will have to wait and see.
A herd of sheep can look like a troop location in some circumstances - particularly at a distance, and vice versa. As I know only too well from one of life's experiences....
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 30, @09:09PM
The Abrams tanks run on jet engines. Plenty of power.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, @05:52AM
Moving down the road at 60 miles as hour. Damn, man! Just nuke the area then.. that'll teach those rocks a lesson!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday April 30, @06:46AM (4 children)
It's great that there's all that extra money available to spend on warmongering devices: it must mean that cancer has been cured, schools are fully staffed, health care is free for everybody and funding has been sorted out, pensions are guaranteed...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday April 30, @08:11AM (3 children)
This is an initiative by private enterprise. They have not taken money away from healthcare, cancer research, education or pension payments. A nice emotive diversion you tried to build there. The US Govt might never buy it - but others might.
They have however provided jobs for people, they may well in the future improve US exports, and they might just help protect your own military - although I accept that you do not think that function is justifiable. This isn't something for killing other people, put protecting those who are being asked to serve on behalf of their country.
Are you equally opposed to anyone producing, say, fire fighting equipment, defibrillators, commercial aircraft etc? Just think how big your pension could be if you got all the money from that sort of stuff transferred directly to your pension pot.
which fits in perfectly with:
So it wasn't your money that was being used after all, and to most nations peace keeping does not include aggressive military invasions. Having been unaligned with any other forces until recently Sweden has been very much involved with PKO.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday April 30, @08:37AM (2 children)
That's short-sighted as fuck.
Military suppliers' only customers are militaries. That's taxpayer's money. Private companies developing military gear make money off the taxpayers' back. Just because they're private doesn't mean they don't live off money that could be better spent elsewhere.
I should know, I work for a military contractor. My very salary comes from someone's taxes.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Sunday April 30, @10:16AM (1 child)
But in this case not YOUR taxes. The Swedes might consider protecting their forces as money well spent.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday April 30, @10:35AM
With a "proud" past of "neutrality", and not currently getting into NATO, hiding better sure sounds like a fine option...