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2008 - German invents radar camouflaging paint.

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posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 10:20 AM
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Old news for some, but I'd like to add it after a little conversation with Zaphod58 about how the internet seems to be undergoing an absolute purge of materials relating to: optical camouflage, radar evading paints, materials that change incoming radar energies to heat not once but twice to avoid IR thermal sensors..

yeah, in short, the juicy stuff.



But Nickel has patience. After spending thousands and thousands hours in the laboratory, he finally mixed the paint he was looking for. He sent a can of it to Helmut Essen, a radiation physicist who runs the radar technology department at the Research Establishment for Applied Science (FGAN) near Bonn. Essen examined Nickel's paint and was surprised to learn that it works "and for all militarily relevant frequencies," he says.


Full article

www.spiegel.de...

In a nutshell, thought it would be a good idea to first archive on a hard drive, then share articles of any interest here.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 10:33 AM
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Here is a particular favourite of mine. Its all about using technology to mimic a cuttlefishes ability to change colour for optical camouflage amongst other uses.

I'd say this would be an absolute game changer for a slow, large, loitering UAV that needed to hide in daytime environments.



Now, Craig Hawker and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have come up with a synthetic version of the colour-changing structures in cuttlefish cells. They created self-assembling ellipsoid particles that act like Bragg reflectors using poly(styrene-b-2-vinylpyridine) diblock copolymers and surfactant coated gold nanoparticles.


www.rsc.org...



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 10:44 AM
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reply to post by Astr0
 


Great idea for an archive. I just lost several yesterday that I hadn't backed up yet when I had to wipe my computer.
edit on 11/3/2013 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 10:48 AM
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POPULAR SCIENCE that an even more exotic skin is being tested on two stealth aircraft at the high-security Groom Lake air base in Nevada. The skin is derived from an electromagnetically conductive polyaniline-based radar-absorbent composite material. It is optically transparent except when electrically charged, much like the LCDs used in laptop computers.

What makes this new material attractive is that it can change brightness and color instantaneously. Photo-sensitive receptors, mounted on all sides of the plane, read the ambient light and color of the sky and ground. An onboard computer adjusts thebrightness, hue, and texture of the skin to match the sky above the plane or the terrain below it.

The system is also claimed to make the aircraft even stealthier. The electrically charged skin dissipates radar waves, reducing the range of detection


jmrc.tripod.com...

This was in 1990. 23 years ago. Article printed 1997. Think about it for a second. What would be THE absolute holy grail of all holies for a UAV? RCS of a small insect and visual cloaking to defeat both the human eye and IR missiles. No wonder its deep black.

I personally adore the Cuttlefish.
edit on 3-11-2013 by Astr0 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 12:36 PM
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Dear ATS - I have to write the piece in its entirety as it no longer has a URL I can direct people to that works. Its a 404 dead link so I typed it from screen captures.






Thursday, Sept 16th, 2004. The Hindu. India's National newspaper.


Stealth coatings for aircraft

The goal of the project is to develop intelligent coatings that will enable aircraft to change colours to blend in with the background.


THOUGH THEY are known for their radar-evading design it does not mean that stealth aircraft cannot be seen by the human eye. "In fact, some of these aircraft are made to fly relatively slowly and this makes them quite vulnerable to ground fire," said physicist Seamus `Shay' Curran, head of the nanotechnology program at New Mexico State University.

New meaning



High-tech coatings that will give new meaning to the term `stealth aircraft' are being developed by Curran and his collaborators at Wake Forest University and the University of Florida. The goal of Curran's aptly named Agile Response Chameleon Coatings research project, for example, is to develop intelligent coatings that will enable aircraft to change colours to blend in with the background, making them harder for ground forces to see.

Bending light



"We are working on photochromic and electrochromic cells that can switch colours like LEDs (light-emitting diodes)," Curran said. "We're going to build the cells first and then the computer system to control the cells. We're also developing a nonlinear coating that would bend light a certain way,'' he continued. "This is playing with luminescence and fluorescence. If you can blur the edges, it makes it very difficult to focus on an object. It gives it sort of a shimmer, like you see sometimes with distant objects on a hot day. Chameleon-like colour changes and blurry edges could buy the pilot a couple of seconds," Curran said.

Thwarting missiles



The researchers' stealthy innovations do not stop there. A coating to thwart missiles that use infrared lock-on targeting systems is another project they are working on. Another would protect against electronic attacks on systems and communications by shielding pilots from electromagnetic interference. Operating on its own, the `smart' stealth technology will sense and respond to the aircraft's environment.

Besides military applications, Curran expects the new materials will have numerous commercial applications. ``We are trying to develop better structural materials, better composites — more lightweight, robust and durable,'' he said.

``A lot of the coatings we are developing I hope we can commercialize , like anti-static coatings, thermal coatings and electromagnetic interference shields.'' The key to creating composites with such remarkable properties is nanotechnology, the ability to build materials an atom at a time, Curran said. ``The real essence of it is control at the nanoscale."



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 12:42 PM
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newscenter.nmsu.edu...

Boom. Knew i'd find the original if I just looked inside university archives.


"We're also developing a nonlinear coating that would bend light a certain way," he continued. "This is playing with luminescence and fluorescence. If you can blur the edges, it makes it very difficult to focus on an object. It gives it sort of a shimmer, like you see sometimes with distant objects on a hot day." Chameleon-like color changes and blurry edges could "buy the pilot a couple of seconds," Curran said.


1990s, 2000's, 13 years ago. Chameleon like, Cuttlefish like... blurring, flickering, eye and sensor dodging.. this is the stuff I'd keep so deep black it'd take an act of the Creator# (Deity of your choicecan be added #) to reveal.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 12:55 PM
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Every one remembers Cenospheres right? if not, have a read.


cenotechnologies.com...



Low observable coatings render IR detection of an object more difficult. These coatings are multipurpose materials that may be tuned for specific missions, or used in standard configurations. For example, they may be designed solely for IR stealth (without compromising the radar cross section of the host), or for both IR and radar stealth simultaneously.


Then INTERMAT Group.

The article has vanished from the web but the wayback machine has its stored thankfully.

web.archive.org...://www.sovereign-publications.com/intermat.htm


However, the general conclusion is that INTERMAT coatings can protect any object. Tanks, armoured vehicles, carriers, artillery, rocket launchers, radar & communication systems, trucks, helicopters and any naval vessel can be rendered virtually undetectable from the IR enemy devices like Thermal Viewers, FLIR systems, NVGs, weapon thermal - IR sensors, etc. working in the spectrums between 600-14.000 nm.


So you see, the internet does have traces of vast amount of work being done to make life in the IR and visible spectrum as difficult as possible for the enemy. Hope this is of some interest.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 02:12 PM
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Do not throw eggs at me please, as I read the title, but this was never recorded on ATS before to my knowledge and just for the sake of archives, I had bookmarked the following about cloaking ships
I keep thinking of that Chinese sub that surfaced amid the US fleet, so to my unmilitary mind it would seem as though it has come to pass.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 03:21 PM
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A screen grab for historical interest.

repository.tudelft.nl...:35d6e52b-9620-47d2-917a-952487951787/

Full link to the downloadable PDF file that explains the entire experiment and shows that even a basic small UAV can, in a blue sky, be illuminated in such a way as to be invisible to the naked eye by some one with 20/20 vision.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 07:38 PM
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Astr0
repository.tudelft.nl...:35d6e52b-9620-47d2-917a-952487951787/

Full link to the downloadable PDF file that explains the entire experiment

Due to the characters in the link, you have to wrap the link in the [ url] [ /url] tags so that it becomes clickable. So, here's your fixed link. You can click on "quote" for this post to see how I did it.

Excellent info, by the way. Thanks for sharing it.





edit on 3-11-2013 by _BoneZ_ because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 07:48 PM
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We farted around with cholesteric coatings for a while - you can change the colors with a pulse and they stay changed until you reprogram them. You just can't get enough gamut yet. But if you could, it would make great chameleonics.

Also, even back in WW2, we "stealthed" planes by illuminating the wings during the daytime. If you match the sky's brightness with the wing lights, a spotter's eyes will edit out the plane details and you just don't see them at all. It doesn't even have to be that close.

Ain't stochastic filtering systems grand? They work great for a lot of real world biological systems like your sight and hearing, but they've got holes you can exploit.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 07:50 PM
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reply to post by Bedlam
 


A TBD went from 12 mile detection by eye, to around 2 miles by doing that.



posted on Nov, 3 2013 @ 08:22 PM
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Bedlam
We farted around with cholesteric coatings for a while - you can change the colors with a pulse and they stay changed until you reprogram them. You just can't get enough gamut yet. But if you could, it would make great chameleonics.

Also, even back in WW2, we "stealthed" planes by illuminating the wings during the daytime. If you match the sky's brightness with the wing lights, a spotter's eyes will edit out the plane details and you just don't see them at all. It doesn't even have to be that close.

Ain't stochastic filtering systems grand? They work great for a lot of real world biological systems like your sight and hearing, but they've got holes you can exploit.


Yehudi lights are some thing i'm familiar with - and have seen a UK RAF F-4 Phantom back in the late 1970s fitted with them on a test. Amazing how such a beast in a bright day become as hard to find as the miniscule MiG-21.

As for cholesteric liquid-crystalline monomers woven into the skins, I could see why this would be an area useful to airframes up close - angle dependant colouring would be a nasty trick on an airframe as it twisted and turned. Talk about stomach churning.



posted on Nov, 4 2013 @ 03:04 AM
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reply to post by Astr0
 


I have a few articles on metamaterials that I'll share once I get onto my laptop, there's some quite interesting things you can do with them, especially negative index metamaterials.

I can only suspect that there may be have been tests done on aircraft using these but articles come and go which means that they could of gone black.



posted on Nov, 4 2013 @ 08:30 AM
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Stealthbomber
reply to post by Astr0
 


I have a few articles on metamaterials that I'll share once I get onto my laptop, there's some quite interesting things you can do with them, especially negative index metamaterials.

I can only suspect that there may be have been tests done on aircraft using these but articles come and go which means that they could of gone black.


From 2007. A very interesting read if you have access. If not, take the title and hit google.



Abstract


Conducting polymers are excellent microwave absorbers and they show technological advantage when compared with inorganic electromagnetic absorbing materials, being light weight, easily processable, and the ability of changing the electromagnetic properties with nature and amount of dopants, synthesis conditions, etc.

In this paper we report the synthesis, dielectric properties, and expected application of conducting composites based on polyaniline (PAN). Cyclohexanone soluble conducting PAN composites of microwave conductivity 12.5 S/m was synthesized by the in situ polymerization of aniline in the presence of emulsion grade polyvinyl chloride. The dielectric properties of the composites, especially the dielectric loss, conductivity, dielectric heating coefficient, absorption coefficient, and penetration depth, were studied using a HP8510 vector network analyzer.

The microwave absorption of the composites were studied at different frequency bands i.e, S, C, and X bands (2–12 GHz). The absorption coefficient was found to be higher than 200 m−1 and it can be used for making microwave absorbers in space applications. POLYM. COMPOS., 28:588–592, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers


Metamaterials surely will be the future of low observables.

www.opticsinfobase.org...




Abstract


We have wrapped metallic cylinders with strongly absorbing metamaterials. These resonant structures, which are patterned on flexible substrates, smoothly coat the cylinder and give it an electromagnetic response designed to minimize its radar cross section. We compare the normal-incidence, small-beam reflection coefficient with the measurement of the far-field bistatic radar cross section of the sample, using a quasi-planar THz wave with a beam diameter significantly larger than the sample dimensions. In this geometry we demonstrate a near-400-fold reduction of the radar cross section at the design frequency of 0.87 THz. In addition we discuss the effect of finite sample dimensions and the spatial dependence of the reflection spectrum of the metamaterial.



posted on Nov, 11 2013 @ 04:15 AM
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From 2006, and then...nada, nowt, zero, zilch. Vanished.

researchnews.osu.edu...



"Almost all radio receivers in the world are designed to eliminate random noise, so that they can clearly receive the signal they're looking for," Walton said. "Radio receivers could search for this radar signal and they wouldn't find it. It also won't interfere with TV, radio, or other communication signals."


its intriguing to see all of these small, seemingly random matters appear, and soon after, almost as if some one sat in an office at the DoD has a 'oh no they didn't!' moment, theyvanish once again never to be spoken about again.

This would be one of those assets you'd hide forever and a day.



posted on Nov, 11 2013 @ 04:56 AM
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reply to post by Astr0
 


At work so I can't dig for it but I've posted on both topics more than once. Dig around for bedlam and uwb radar, impulse radar or sneaky wave.



posted on Nov, 12 2013 @ 04:18 AM
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reply to post by Bedlam
 


Here's a few for ya, since you can't look yourself.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

^ This last one I found quite interesting, do you know if they found Ning Li or if the project she was working on actually worked in the way she hoped?


-------------------------------------- Department of Defense Annual Report on Cooperative Agreements and Other Transactions Entered into During FY2001 Under 10 USC 2371 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agreement Number: DAAH01-01-9-R001 Type of Agreement: Other Transaction for Prototype Title: Gravito - Electro Magnetic Superconductivity Experiment Awarding Office: US Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), AMSAM-AC-RD-BA Awardee: AC Gravity, LLD Effective Date: 25 Apr 2001 Completion Date: 25 Sep 2002 U.S. Government Dollars: $448,970 Non-Government Dollars: $ 0 Dollars Returned to Government Account: $ 0


That's apparently the receipt from the DOD for her project.

Thanks Bedlam.




posted on Nov, 12 2013 @ 06:41 PM
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reply to post by Stealthbomber
 


Actually, depending on the document that came from, you will also see the PhantomWorks get $30 mil or so to develop a fieldable demo of their then-current left-handed metamaterial coating.



posted on Nov, 12 2013 @ 09:41 PM
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reply to post by Bedlam
 


I don't have that document, but I found another one. Is there a way to find out how much money was spent using the funding numbers I have? The number is AFOSR F49620-02-1-0404.

Here's the PDF for it, it's a report on intrinsic left handed metamaterials done at the request of the USAF by the University of California.

www.dtic.mil...



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