Active camouflage differs from conventional means of
concealment in two important ways. First, it makes the object appear not
merely similar to its
surroundings, but invisible through the use of perfect mimicry. Second,
active camouflage changes the appearance of the object in real time. Ideally,
active
camouflage mimics nearby objects as well as objects as distant as the
horizon.
The effect should be similar to looking through a pane of glass, making the
camouflaged object practically invisible.
Active camouflage has its origins in the diffused lighting camouflage first
tested on Canadian Navy corvettes
during World War II, and later in the armed forces of the United Kingdom and
the United States of America.
Current systems began with a United States Air Force program which placed
low-intensity blue lights on
aircraft. As night skies are not pitch black, a 100 percent black-coloured
aircraft might be rendered visible. By emitting a small amount of blue light,
the aircraft blends more effectively into the night sky.
Active camouflage is rumoured to have taken a new turn with the development
of the Boeing Bird of Prey, which apparently took the technology further. The
Bird of Prey was a black project and details about it are sketchy.
In the United States a black project is a classified military/defence
project, unacknowledged by the government, military personnel, and defence
contractors. Familiar examples of U.S. military aircraft developed as black
projects are the F-117 stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber, which were
highly classified and denied to exist until ready to be announced to the
public.
Active camouflage is poised to develop at a rapid pace with the development
of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and other technologies which allow
for images to be projected onto irregularly-shaped surfaces. With the
addition of a camera, an object may not be made completely
invisible, but may in theory mimic enough of its surrounding background to
avoid detection by the human eye as well as
optical sensors. As motion may still be noticeable, an object might not be
rendered undetectable under this circumstance but potentially more difficult
to hit. This has been demonstrated with videos of "wearable"
displays where the camera could see "through" the wearer.
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Outside of fiction, the concept exists
only in theory and in
proof-of-concept prototypes, although many experts consider it technically
feasible. In 2003, three professors at
University of Tokyo — Susumu Tachi, Masahiko Inami and Naoki Kawakami —
created a prototypical camouflage system in which a video camera takes a shot
of the background and displays it on a cloth using an external projector.
The same year
Time magazine named it the coolest invention of 2003. With flexible
electronics such as a flexible
liquid crystal display that would permit display of the background image by
the material itself, this form of optical camouflage may closely resemble
its fictional counterparts.
Phased array optics (PAO) provides the most "perfect
implementation" of optical camouflage yet proposed. Instead of producing
a two
dimensional image of background scenery on an object, PAO produces a full
color three dimensional hologram of background scenery. Unlike two dimensional
images, the holographic image remains indistinguishable from true
invisibility
independent of object distance or view angle.
Wearable version of illusory transparency made from a tiling of
flat panel displays supplied with images from cameras, and a
computer processing system. This functioning prototype is limited by the
number of sensors and transducers.
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Optical camouflage is a kind of active camouflage which
completely envelopes the wearer. It displays an image of the scene on the side
opposite
the viewer on it, so that the viewer can "see through" the wearer,
rendering the wearer invisible. The idea appears in many fictional works, such
as the
William Gibson novel Neuromancer, where it is referred to as a
"mimetic polycarbon suit,"
and the 1979 novel "Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe" by George Takei and
Robert Asprin. Also referred to as "thermoptic camouflage" or simply
"thermoptics,"
this technology was popularized by the sci-fi manga (and later anime)
Ghost in the Shell and Gantz. The 2000 video
game Deus Ex, which was influenced by Ghost in the Shell, also featured a
"Thermoptical Camouflage". It was then seen in the 2002 James
Bond movie Die Another Day, as well as a similar technology appearing
in the Metal Gear Solid and Halo video
game series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the video game
Phantom Crash, in the air combat game "Ace Combat X" as the
device
that camouflaged the Gleipnir and the Fenrir, in the MMOFPS game PlanetSide
featured as an infiltration suit, In The
Predator movie franchise (Activated on a gauntlet) and as an unlock for the
"scout" class in a Half Life 2 mod, "Empires". An optical
camouflage
device appears in the PC game Battlefield 2142 as an unlockable item.
The active camouflage suit by name is credited to science
fiction author Philip K. Dick in his 1974 novel A Scanner Darkly. Worn
by the narcotics
double agent Bob Arctor/Fred, the "scramble suit" is described as
a flexible sheath
covering the body of the wearer with a reflective/refractive coating on the
inside surface that transfers the camouflaging pattern — projected by a
holographic lens mounted on the wearer's head — onto the outside surface of
the sheath.
Dick's invention has been copied many times in novels, films and video games
to become a standard device in science fiction. Examples appear in the
Arnold Schwarzenegger film Predator, the James Bond film Die
Another Day, the Metal Gear Solid video game series, the MMOFPS game
PlanetSide, the Halo video game series, the Crysis new generation
video game and the Japanese anime and manga
Ghost in the Shell and Gantz — cited as the inspiration for Tokyo
University experiments into optical camouflage. A similar
cloaking device is found in Star Trek, however this example does not
achieve active camouflage in the same way.
It is notable that in "Ghost in the Shell", the
thermoptic camouflage offers concealment in both the optical and infra-red
electromagnetic frequencies.
Also in the book series Artemis Fowl the L.E.P (Lower Elements Police) have
technology similar to
this in the form of "camfoil". While invisible to human eye, it
does not work with cameras and can be shorted out by a shower.
Active camouflage is not a human invention. The most
convincing example of active camouflage in animals is the octopus,
which can blend into its surroundings by changing skin color as well as skin
shape and texture. The
cuttlefish, another mollusc like the octopus, is also known for its color
changing capabilities. Cuttlefish can produce more colors than most octopuses
can. The chameleon can also change its color to blend with its surroundings.
However, a chameleon more routinely changes color based on body temperature
and how stressed it is. The ability is also used to communicate with other
chameleons. Color change is also communicative in octopuses and cuttlefish.
A fictional example of active camouflage in animals is the Gila-Munga, a
race of extraterrestrial assassins appearing in Judge
Dredd, a story serialized in the weekly British comic book anthology 2000
AD.
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