Plan For Cloaking Device Unveiled

Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that a plan for a cloaking device has been unveiled. The design is pioneered by Professor Sir John Pendry's team of scientists from the US and Britain. Proof of the ability of his invention could be ready in just 18 months time using radar testing. The method revolves around certain materials making light "flow" around the given object like water."

Harry Potter Bull$4it

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read this story on about 4 news sites now and if I hear one more bloody site telling the public that this is 'Harry Potter' inspired I am going to have to cloak my foot up their asses. The mere thought of a scientist being inspired by Harry Potter pisses me off enough, but that they are perpetuating the idea that a childrens book written relatively recently is superceeding 150 years of SCIENCE fiction is what inspires stuff like this.

Completely off topic I know but had to get that out.. Carry on

Cloaking for fun and profit

[patio11]

There is a Japanese research group which has a cloaking system (well, technically its more of a very adaptive camoflague -- significant drawbacks, such as the requirement to have a camera focused on the object you want to cloak, make it less than useful for military applications). Its essentially useless currently, but it makes for very fun tech demos.

http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MEDI A/xv/oc.html [u-tokyo.ac.jp]

My favorite one is the breakdancing guy in the bottom video.

In theory, this post will be modded down...

[AlexanderDitto]

I'd like to point out that this is brilliantly advanced... in theory. It's completely possible and will likely be buildable... in theory.

I RTFA, and frankly, it sounds like confirmation of the idea that mathamatics in general is WAY ahead of the other sciences. Things that are perfectly possible in theory are out of our grasp in the real world... right now, at least.

Even as a mathmatician, the fact that there's so much theory and so little actual DOING has me worried. There's a tiny flaw in the use of 'metamaterials' to make objects invisible... we don't HAVE metamaterials.

Though, it beats sticking my head in the sand by a long shot.

The split ends are horrible.

Re:Radar?

[Amouth]

I would think a little different.. the Stealth Bomber is "Stealth" against active radar.. but can still be seen via passive radar..

abet harder to set up a passive radar system but not imposable..

when you send out the radar wave and look for what bounces back that is active.. when you have something on the other side of your target looking for that wave - that is passive.

if you setup two towers and the broadcast to each other and you fly between them they can tell even if they can see it actively... if you set up a perimeter of them say 3-4-5 or more and they all talk back and forth .. they could see the stealth bomber fly through and if your field is dense enough they would be able to track it easily

with this type of tech the item would be invisible to active and passive radar.. although I bet it would show some type of ghosting effect for areas near it via passive scan.. it would be very hard to track.

Useless for people

[GFLPraxis]

If I'm not mistaken, since this bends the light around the object, none of the light actually hits the object, correct?

So no invisible surveilance cameras or human beings- the light would miss the lens of the camera or the eye of the human and they'd be completely blind.

Re:Cloaking for fun and profit

[fufubag]

No, for example, every inch of body armour may have a 2mm by 2mm (or smaller - nano) camera lense, and the rest taken up by some kind of 'screen' (but each screen is connected to a camera on the opposite side), and this is done all over the suit. Every 1 inch screen has its own camera on the opposite side. So from every angle, you would see what the cameras are recording on the exact opposite side (the camera is filming what you would have in your line of sight if the target was not standing in the way).

Basically the exterior of the suit would be made up of hundreds or thousands of nano cameras mixed with some kind of view-screens as well.

useful for what?

[phlegmofdiscontent]

Reading TFA, it strikes me as being similar to something posted on /. a month or two ago promising the same thing. TFA is light on details, but if I remember the previous article correctly and they're a similar principle (that's a lot of ifs), then this is only useful for objects about the size of the wavelength of light being used. In other words, objects smaller than 3cm for microwaves, objects about a meter for radio, and about 500 nanometers for visible. That being said, it's useless for military applications since most military vehicles are larger than 1 meter. It's also useless for people since you'd have to be about a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair in order to hide.

Re:Good

[RedBear]

This is good if the enemy doesn't have a Comsat or a Science Vessel.

Don't you mean a Science Wessel?

Wessel.

Well, I thought it was funny...

Re:Cloaking for fun and profit

[^Bobby^]

Parallax. Any 'stealth suit' that relies on cameras and screens cannot work because a screen would have to show different images depending on the angle the person is looking for.

Re:Cloaking for fun and profit

[It'sYerMam]

This would work great if you wanted to cloak a sphere. If, however, you view anything else, then as the viewing angle changes, so does what you expect to see behind it. Imagine (as a simple example) a cube with a large camera on one end and a screen on the other. You will only see what you expect to see when you view the screen straight on. Otherwise, the camera will have rotated with respect to you and will be transmitting diagonally to the screen.
Further, if you then deform the screen or the surface with the cameras on, this breaks completely, too.

ah, no way this will "cloak"

[Ancient_Hacker]

Dang laws of Physics! Getting in the way again.

It's very unlikely this development will 'cloak" anything.

Small matter of "index of refraction".

You'll note the picture in the article shows light rays hitting the object "head-on". What happens to rays that hit at an angle? Even if they exit at the same angle, are they exiting along the same axis, or displaced? The article doesnt say.

Also most substances have significant reflection at each air-substance boundary-- how will this device handle that issue?

Nice try, but still quite a long way from making an object "invisible".

Re:Useless for people

[phoenix321]

There are thousands of CCD "spy"cameras available everywhere that have an aperture of less than 3mm. Their video quality is not much worse than the regular surveillance cam, which is already enough for driving a tank. And I'm sure the military can do MUCH better than that.

An enemy near enough to see two tiny camera pinholes in front of a cloaked M1 Abrams from the future should make his peace with God immediately.

Re:Useless for people, but not artillery

[BraksDad]

How about artillery?

All you need is the tip of a radio antenna to receive coordinates from a satelite. That antenna could even be a dragged wire that would be flush with the ground.

The satelite itself might not be able to benefit from this technology... unless it was nuclear powered. Can't exactly hide those solar panels from light.