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BAE's 'eCamouflage' cloak
A few years ago I posted about the 2007 demonstration in the UK of a military cloaking techmology based on front-projection - using cams and displays to project a visual background on a vehicles opposite side.
This method was developed in Japan and the subject of a YouTube video. The resolution was low and the results crude, but good enough to continue work and cause no end of Harry Potter cloak stories.
Since then major inroads have been made in both miniature cameras, some with not just HD but with resolutions far beyond it, and printable displays. It now appears all these pieces are falling into place in a tech BAE (huge arms supplier) is calling eCamouflage, which could be used to mask major portions of military vehicles.
I would further note that Boeing has tested something similar on their Bird of Prey testbed and that BAE has been working with our DoD on this.
NBC's Cosmic Log....
Get set for invisible war machines
John Roach writes:Within a few years the Brits may deploy invisible armored tanks onto the battlefield, a breakthrough in stealth technology that Harry Potter would certainly applaud.
Defense contractor BAE Systems is working on the technology, which uses a "display system within the structure of the vehicle" to display images captured by cameras on one side of the vehicle on the opposite side so that the vehicle "blends in with the background scenery," company spokesman Mike Sweeney explained to me today.
"We also have a way to protect that structure from battle damage and that's obviously key," he added.
The images would be constantly updated, keeping the tank camouflaged as it rolls through the landscape.
Optical camouflage
The concept of wrapping a vehicle or person in real-time images of its surroundings has been worked on for years. An optical camouflage jacket developed by Susumu Tachi and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo, for example, made the Internet rounds in the mid-2000s.
"Pretty much all the systems that have been cooked up so far all use a projector that picks up the background," Sweeney said. "Where they differ is in how the image is then displayed."
He is tight-lipped on the details of BAE's display system, called eCamouflage, but said to think in terms of something like a flat screen television. This would make displays work relatively easily on flat surfaces, such as depicted in the concept image of the tank above. "I honestly don't know how we are doing it on other areas" such as the front of the tank, Sweeney added, though he noted that is indeed the plan.
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John Roach writes:Within a few years the Brits may deploy invisible armored tanks onto the battlefield, a breakthrough in stealth technology that Harry Potter would certainly applaud.
Defense contractor BAE Systems is working on the technology, which uses a "display system within the structure of the vehicle" to display images captured by cameras on one side of the vehicle on the opposite side so that the vehicle "blends in with the background scenery," company spokesman Mike Sweeney explained to me today.
"We also have a way to protect that structure from battle damage and that's obviously key," he added.
The images would be constantly updated, keeping the tank camouflaged as it rolls through the landscape.
Optical camouflage
The concept of wrapping a vehicle or person in real-time images of its surroundings has been worked on for years. An optical camouflage jacket developed by Susumu Tachi and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo, for example, made the Internet rounds in the mid-2000s.
"Pretty much all the systems that have been cooked up so far all use a projector that picks up the background," Sweeney said. "Where they differ is in how the image is then displayed."
He is tight-lipped on the details of BAE's display system, called eCamouflage, but said to think in terms of something like a flat screen television. This would make displays work relatively easily on flat surfaces, such as depicted in the concept image of the tank above. "I honestly don't know how we are doing it on other areas" such as the front of the tank, Sweeney added, though he noted that is indeed the plan.
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