damm1t
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Well, I have been waiting this news for a long time.
In the realm of warfare, if your enemy cannot see you, they cannot find you. And that alone would have given you a large tactical advantage for sure on the battlefield. Well, the magical invisible cloak has yet to be invented or conjured up by witchcraft and wizardry, but thankfully, the realm of science has made its fair share of advancements when it comes to stealth technology. This time around, it is yet another version of skin that can be stretched, effectively trapping and suppresses radar waves.
Not quite the ‘octopus skin’ that we saw cover a stretchable robot earlier last week, but rather, this cloaking technology will be able to allow a person or even a vehicle get around undetected. Needless to say, the military would be more than happy to check out the potential applications that they can use this in the field of war, and it would include coating next-generation stealth bombers with such material for that added advantage.
The brains behind this meta-skin? A team at Iowa State University that is helmed by electrical and computer engineering professor Jiming Song alongside associate professor Liang Dong. Rows of small split-ring resonators have been embedded within the silicone sheets, and these resonators carry the liquid metal alloy galinstan, which is able to be tuned to trap and suppress specific radar frequencies as it stretches out.
In tests, the meta-skin successfully achieved a radar suppression of approximately 75% in the 8 to 10 gigahertz range. which is the band that sees action in civil marine radar, tracking radar, airborne weather avoidance radar, and systems for detecting mortar and artillery projectiles.
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(Article 2)
A team at Iowa State University led by electrical and computer engineering professor Jiming Song and associate professor Liang Dong developed a metamaterial they’re calling “meta-skin.”
Metamaterials are manmade materials that have capabilities greater than the sum of their individual components. While cartoonist Randall Munroe sadly doesn’t have an entry for them in his “Thing Explainer” book, his xkcd comic strip does. Having learned about the physical feats some can pull off, I think they’re kind of magical.
The engineers at Iowa State University created their metamaterial by embedding rows of tiny split-ring resonators inside silicone sheets. These resonators contain the liquid metal alloy galinstan, which is gallium, indium, and tin. It’s used commercially and has low toxicity compared to other liquid metals. I even found some on Amazon.com.
World’s First Invisible Skyscraper Going Up
The meta-skin can be tuned to trap and suppress specific radar frequencies by stretching out the liquid metal rings, according to the university. When the team tested their metamaterial by wrapping it around a dielectric cylindrical rod at different angles, they found it did well and even reached a radar suppression of about 75 percent in the 8 to 10 gigahertz range.
According to the Physics Factbook, that band is used for civil marine radar, tracking radar, airborne weather avoidance radar, systems for detecting mortar and artillery projectiles, and police speed meters.
Despite repeated measurements, the meta-skin didn’t crack or show signs of fatigue, the team reports in the journal Scientific Reports. The engineers think their stretchy metamaterial could one day cover next-gen stealth aircraft. Such tech promises to make military aircraft even more hidden from detection than the B-2.
“The long-term goal is to shrink the size of these devices,” Dong said in a university press release. “Then hopefully we can do this with higher-frequency electromagnetic waves such as visible or infrared light.” That’s right. Visible light, the holy grail for cloaking materials.
The Invisibility Cloak You’ve Been Waiting For
Over the past few years, we’ve seen incremental advancements in cloaking devices and materials. There was the biocompatible silk-based metamaterial for invisibility in the terahertz range. Plus, the neat light-manipulating lens system for seeing through objects and that ultrathin metamaterial that turned nanoscale objects into flat mirrors.
While the ultimate Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak remains elusive, engineers are getting better at hiding objects from detection. They’ve still got a long way to go, but when they finally succeed in making large objects truly invisible, don’t say you didn’t see it coming.
‘Meta-Skin’ Offers Radar Invisibility | Ubergizmo
'Meta-Skin' Truly Cloaks Objects From Radar : Discovery News
In the realm of warfare, if your enemy cannot see you, they cannot find you. And that alone would have given you a large tactical advantage for sure on the battlefield. Well, the magical invisible cloak has yet to be invented or conjured up by witchcraft and wizardry, but thankfully, the realm of science has made its fair share of advancements when it comes to stealth technology. This time around, it is yet another version of skin that can be stretched, effectively trapping and suppresses radar waves.
Not quite the ‘octopus skin’ that we saw cover a stretchable robot earlier last week, but rather, this cloaking technology will be able to allow a person or even a vehicle get around undetected. Needless to say, the military would be more than happy to check out the potential applications that they can use this in the field of war, and it would include coating next-generation stealth bombers with such material for that added advantage.
The brains behind this meta-skin? A team at Iowa State University that is helmed by electrical and computer engineering professor Jiming Song alongside associate professor Liang Dong. Rows of small split-ring resonators have been embedded within the silicone sheets, and these resonators carry the liquid metal alloy galinstan, which is able to be tuned to trap and suppress specific radar frequencies as it stretches out.
In tests, the meta-skin successfully achieved a radar suppression of approximately 75% in the 8 to 10 gigahertz range. which is the band that sees action in civil marine radar, tracking radar, airborne weather avoidance radar, and systems for detecting mortar and artillery projectiles.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Article 2)
A team at Iowa State University led by electrical and computer engineering professor Jiming Song and associate professor Liang Dong developed a metamaterial they’re calling “meta-skin.”
Metamaterials are manmade materials that have capabilities greater than the sum of their individual components. While cartoonist Randall Munroe sadly doesn’t have an entry for them in his “Thing Explainer” book, his xkcd comic strip does. Having learned about the physical feats some can pull off, I think they’re kind of magical.
The engineers at Iowa State University created their metamaterial by embedding rows of tiny split-ring resonators inside silicone sheets. These resonators contain the liquid metal alloy galinstan, which is gallium, indium, and tin. It’s used commercially and has low toxicity compared to other liquid metals. I even found some on Amazon.com.
World’s First Invisible Skyscraper Going Up
The meta-skin can be tuned to trap and suppress specific radar frequencies by stretching out the liquid metal rings, according to the university. When the team tested their metamaterial by wrapping it around a dielectric cylindrical rod at different angles, they found it did well and even reached a radar suppression of about 75 percent in the 8 to 10 gigahertz range.
According to the Physics Factbook, that band is used for civil marine radar, tracking radar, airborne weather avoidance radar, systems for detecting mortar and artillery projectiles, and police speed meters.
Despite repeated measurements, the meta-skin didn’t crack or show signs of fatigue, the team reports in the journal Scientific Reports. The engineers think their stretchy metamaterial could one day cover next-gen stealth aircraft. Such tech promises to make military aircraft even more hidden from detection than the B-2.
“The long-term goal is to shrink the size of these devices,” Dong said in a university press release. “Then hopefully we can do this with higher-frequency electromagnetic waves such as visible or infrared light.” That’s right. Visible light, the holy grail for cloaking materials.
The Invisibility Cloak You’ve Been Waiting For
Over the past few years, we’ve seen incremental advancements in cloaking devices and materials. There was the biocompatible silk-based metamaterial for invisibility in the terahertz range. Plus, the neat light-manipulating lens system for seeing through objects and that ultrathin metamaterial that turned nanoscale objects into flat mirrors.
While the ultimate Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak remains elusive, engineers are getting better at hiding objects from detection. They’ve still got a long way to go, but when they finally succeed in making large objects truly invisible, don’t say you didn’t see it coming.
‘Meta-Skin’ Offers Radar Invisibility | Ubergizmo
'Meta-Skin' Truly Cloaks Objects From Radar : Discovery News
