So let’s say you drive occasionally a bit over the legal limit, wouldn’t you like something like this?
“Unlike traditional camouflage systems which rely on paint or nets to hide vehicles, ADAPTIV can instantly blend a vehicle into its background.
With the ADAPTIV system installed, a unit has: The ability to blend into natural surroundings. The ability to mimic natural objects and other vehicles. A significantly reduced detection range.”
The system has been developed by Britain’s BAE. It’s target market is military vehicles. But if you drive a tank of a car, or own a car with the price tag of an F16, a little ADAPTIV should fit your budget. Remember:
“Whether it is day or night, whether they are on the move or stationary, ADAPTIV gives your vehicles increased stealth – and greater survivability.”
If your budget is a little tighter, try this. But only “at shows and events.”
Hey, I would like to see LED glass for window tinting – side and rear glass could be set to the legal limit during the day, go clear at night, the whole greenhouse could go full opaque when parked. Blacked out headlights and taillights could be the new hidden headlights or at least people could stop painting over their headlights to get the smoked look.
YES! I have wanted this for so long. I assume you mean LCD, because that would make 1000x more sense, but to be able to change the transparency of automobile windows and headlights at the flick of a switch would be very very desirable to me. All the coolness of tinted windows and headlights, without the danger. One could even extend this to the license plate, as in the above video, though not sure if it’d be quite as legal as the rest. But really, to be able to completely black-out my interior while parked would be so useful!
I seem to think that Mercedes does something like this with their sunroofs, Auto Sky Control or something like that, so it is at least plausible in the long term. One hurdle to overcome, however, is that LCD panels require electricity to stay in either the opaque or transparent state (one or the other, I don’t remember which). If somehow technology similar to that of E-ink, which doesn’t require voltage to maintain its shade and is common in e-reader displays, could be implemented to reduce the amount of battery strain…..
…. Ok I’ve talked about this long enough. Suffice to say I want it. Please let me know if you ever find or develop a product.
Yes, of course, LCD – doh! Not sure if that was my thumbs in a hurry or the iPod thinking it knew better but yes, LCDs.
I don’t think LCD require much energy to maintain a state, but then when you’re talking about as much surface area as that of a car’s glass then it may be a different story. I believe the no power state can be either opaque or transparent depending on how the crystals are initially oriented. eReader type tech probably wouldn’t work – those screens are made up of tiny little balls that are black on one side and white on the other so there is no transparent state although maybe you could do something sneaky with clear, polarized balls.
It would be monitored by a computer and if battery voltage started to drop off it would turn itself off – the natural state with no voltage applied would be full clear of course so that in the event of failure, you could see out of the windows and a circuit breaking kill switch would disable it. Perhaps it could be powered by a solar panel and then not drain any power on the days it’s needed most – really bright, sunny days.
I did some conceptual work on a product like this when in college. I also was working on a glass with directional optical blocking: block the sun in one direction–but not another–through the same section of the glass.
Nah, I think I still want the radar absorbent paint. Not quite as cutting edge, but not quite as expensive as trying to be invisible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar-absorbent_material Of course I don’t know what a very confused member of the fuzz would do.
=>Now imagine driving a Reventon or a Sesto Elemento covered in RAM.
It’d be like a goddamn road-going F117!!!
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btw, it’s been heard of random fuzzies that darker cars are harder to get a clock on. From the trend, I would imagine a flat/semigloss black at the tougher end of the scale.
There are multiple radar/laser devices that cops can use, so you would need something that absorbs all of the frequencies they use.
Also, there’s no reason speed ‘guns’ can’t be designed to work using only passive light–determining speed based on visible light reflected by your car over time instead of dopler shift of a beam shot from their gun. If they use that tech, if they can see you, they can clock you, and fuzzbusters become worthless.
Surely no one would ever use such a device while the vehicle is in motion, for nefarious purposes?
I mean, we all know how difficult it is to remove or cover one’s license plate “at shows and events.” (eye roll)
This IR camouflage system only works when the tank is not moving, has no hot exhaust and is not firing shots (hot guns). It also is visible to the human eye and radar.
Who knows what drawback the system has and how long it can work (seconds, minutes?). It likely uses tremendous amounts of energy and increases the weight, or reduces armor. Both huge disadvantages for tanks (besides the not moving and not shooting part).
If your tank army needs tanks that don’t move and shoot, and your enemy doesn’t have human eyes or radar or gets close tot he tank, this is the tank for you!
“If your tank army needs tanks that don’t move and shoot”, in the trade, this is known as artillery.
most of the time tanks don’t move. Even on the battlefield because it would use to much fuel so no, this doesn’t make it artillery
“This IR camouflage system only works when the tank is not moving, has no hot exhaust and is not firing shots (hot guns). It also is visible to the human eye and radar.”
I think you just made that up.
According to BAE:
“Once mounted on a vehicles hull or ballistic armour plates, ADAPTIV renders a vehicle invisible to infra-red and other surveillance technology.
Whether it is day or night, whether they are on the move or stationary, ADAPTIV gives your vehicles increased stealth – and greater survivability.”
It’s tempting to generalize from the slightly ambiguous way the advertisement is scripted, but this is an early step in IR signature management and that’s the end of the news. The advertisement isn’t exactly deceptive because it declares the threat up front to be “common IR technology”. Those hexagonal modules are probably just TE coolers. It’s not revolutionary and it’s not difficult, otherwise the idea would have stayed classified.
Again, another great idea of mine is taken to market before I have a chance to get beyond the idea in the brain stage.
I had always thought an LCD license plate cover you can switch to black with a switch would be great when crossing through toll areas free of charge. Because when the camera takes the picture of your license plate they wouldn’t know who to send the ticket to.
Might also work great for areas where ATS has their sticky fingers.
Regarding the “Stealth Plate” video, can you legally cover / conceal a street car’s plate at any time? I’m almost certain that the (People’s Republic of) NY would severely frown on this product.
If the car is not parked or being driven on a public street you’re not required to have a plate or even a registration at all.
Given that we all know the purpose of the product and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with “shows and events”, I envision its being banned from any vehicle operated on public roads by virtue of its ability to obscure a plate at will.
In TX, people were obscuring their license plates to thwart toll road cameras. The state responded by passing an ordinance that anything hindering identification of a license plate–including a regular frame–was illegal & ticketable. They got really enthusiastic with that one, but have since backed off a bit.
Or you could be Steve Jobs
I thought if you wanted to be invisible to the authorities you just bought a Camry.
I believe an old pickup in ‘contractor white’ would be even more effective.
The auto spam guard is humorless. I was going to do a beigemobile joke but it won’t let me. :(
I’d be happy if “all” I could do was change the color of my car at the flick of a switch. Some kind of LCD wrap…
IMO, the next tech revolution will be in biologic machines. For example, giving your car a coating that functions like the skin of an octopus:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-squid-and-octopuse;cf03380E66=7080D438C!MjA0MDQzODU2OmNvcnByYWRpdXNzc286pcyB7AHAacG8IlJ4Ly7bGw==
I can see it now: Car makers will equip new models with this system as standard. Then each year they will release and sell a new “app” to create a new appearance for the vehicle. This will be cheaper than punching out new sheet metal when they want to change the car’s styling, and they will still be able to make the gullible buyers pay up for it. It will also appeal to the typical, young, consumer-tech buyer who thinks “apps” and “virtual” things are better than the actual, physical stuff they imitate.
I remember seeing something like this on the short-lived TV series ‘Viper.’ It could disguise the titular car as a Plymouth Breeze.
The IR shield a neat technology, but not really applicable to cars where direct line of sight is much more important than hiding from a drone or satellite beyond normal visual range. Back when the stealth bomber was rolled out my first thought was it’s very easy to spot with the naked eye and so slow a Mustang (or F86 if you want to be sure) could intercept it. Granted when there’s no visibility it’s got a big advantage, but when spotted there’s no escape.