Camouflage Today: Part 3- Looking to the Future

DARPA is unique among government agencies in not only being allowed, but encouraged, to pursue concepts and technologies that may not come into regular use for decades – if then. Those have included the Internet, aircraft stealth, unmanned air and ground vehicles, robots, directed energy, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, precision guidance, hypersonic flight, bionic prosthetics, controlling mechanical devices by thought, and flying cars.

During his time with DARPA, Smith led a research team investigating, among other things, invisibility. He has continued that work at Duke, with research into the electromagnetic properties of artificially structured materials – metamaterials – and the theoretical potential to design a material that would render objects invisible.

He also sees some “glimmer of reality” in the cloaking technology used by Star Trek’s Romulans to make their starships not only undetectable by sensors, but also invisible to the naked eye. However, while theoretically possible, based on the bending of light near massive gravitational sources, such as black holes, creating a portable device carried aboard a ship and being able to turn it on and off, in his words, leaves it “firmly the domain of science fiction.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Smith sees far greater potential for real-world invisibility in a science – rather than magic – based version of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. By using the right materials, he wrote, it might be possible to bend light around the cloak – which would create a sphere surrounding the object to be concealed – without requiring a black hole’s gravity well.

“The capabilities and limitations of cloaking will continue to be sorted out in the coming months and years, but there are some issues that are clear from the outset,” Smith wrote. “The cloak is a complicated structure. Not just complicated, but one that requires materials that are not known to exist. This appears to be one difficulty we can surmount by the use of artificial micro- and nano-structures that can substitute for the lack of conventional materials having the right properties. And while the cloaking structures are complex as materials go, they are nevertheless easily fabricated using available technologies.

Overall, then, the future of camouflage for land forces – indeed, all military and paramilitary units – appears on the edge of the first significant change since Ice Age hunters covered themselves with mud and leaves, first to trick game animals, later other humans during combat.

“One last point to consider is that the entire design paradigm that leads to the cloak – starting by transforming space and then determining the equivalent electromagnetic material – represents a new approach to optics,” Smith concluded. “Just five years ago, this idea of transformed optics might have been abandoned because the resulting material requirements would have been considered impractical.

“With the advent of metamaterials, that conclusion has now changed and we can envision entirely new classes of optical devices, invisibility cloaks being just one example. So, while we have been inspired by the invisibility of fictional worlds, perhaps the discoveries that might follow from transformation optics will in turn have an impact in fictional worlds – as well as in the actual world.”

(Courtesy of http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/camouflage-today/)

Camouflage Today: Part 2- Modern Warfare

Human warfighters are not the sole users of battlefield camouflage, of course. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, Humvees, command tents, and so on typically use paint or fabric schemes, netting, and other covers in an attempt to blend into the background, reduce IR signatures, and escape detection, primarily from aerial reconnaissance – manned or unmanned aircraft – and satellites.

Because military vehicles quickly become covered in dirt, mud, or sand, paint schemes alone provide only marginal protection. Efforts also must be made to reduce reflectivity, so the vehicle does not “shine” or glitter in sunlight, a problem typically increased when the vehicle is wet. Netting, which is continuously being improved in design and materials, has been the best solution to date, although natural cover – from hiding beneath trees or in the shell of a building to covering the vehicle with leaves, branches, or even rubble – remains common.

The addition of IR suppressive materials provides added protection against both air and ground detection, but all such measures still leave the item being covered vulnerable to radar. As a result, the definition of camouflage has now been expanded through the introduction of stealth technologies, such as radar-defeating shapes and materials and electronic disruption of enemy detection and weapons guidance systems. But defeating electronic detection is a far greater challenge than fooling the human eye and brain.

Night vision goggles and weapon scopes, for example, have enabled military operations to continue at night, which historically provided cover to both forces on the move and those seeking rest and resupply. Traditional camouflage is useless against systems that use the heat produced by the human body and military equipment to locate potential targets. While IR-masking materials, from netting that also incorporates camouflage designs and colors for daytime concealment to thermal blankets and other materials, can help protect equipment – from computers to tanks – it is not enough. That also applies to humans, leading to research into how to block the detection of body heat through special materials for clothing and packs. The problem is doing so without “cooking” the wearer.

(Courtesy of http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/camouflage-today/)

Camouflage Today: Part 1- An ancient art moves into the 21st century

Camouflage has been used in ground combat throughout history, but primarily by hunters called to temporary military duty rather than formalized armies, against whom they often were pitted. The earliest forms – such as covering a combatant with dirt, mud, or bits of foliage – are still in use, even by the most technologically advanced militaries. But, as with all other elements of warfare, camouflage also has been and will be heavily affected by new materials and science.

It was not until the 1800s that national armies, initially troops of the British Empire in India and South Africa, began to shed brightly colored battle dress for neutral colors that would make them more difficult targets. But even limited camouflage did not become a semi-regular part of military dress until World War I. In the years between the two great wars, military leaders finally began shedding the millennia-old concept that concealment in combat was “shameful” and started looking for ways to increase warfighter survivability through combat uniforms that did not stand out from their background.

Three of the most influential – and diverse – factors in this effort were American author Gerald Handerson Thayer’s 1909 book, Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, insights into how humans perceive what they see from early 20th century German Gestalt psychology, and the avant-garde work of cubist and impressionist painters. Combining the three, along with studies of the concealment methods of hunters, American Indians, and other non-European cultures, led to a far different style of battle uniform during World War II.

A major shift in camouflage design was developed in the late 1990s for the Canadian military: employing a computer-generated blending of pixels – essentially, square spots of varying size – that formed no specific pattern. An advancement on the basic effort to confuse an observer’s brain, variations on that theme were quickly adopted by other nations, especially for post-9/11 operations in Southwest Asia.

Most nations now employ a variety of camouflage patterns, for use in different environments (snow, jungle, desert, urban, etc.) by different groups (army, navy, air force, special forces, police, etc.). Some variations may be on the road to reversal, such as the divergence of U.S. Army and Marine Corps designs during the past decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two may come back together if they see success in recent efforts to develop a new universal pattern, enabling warfighters to wear the same combat fatigues into almost any environment (snow being a primary exception).

Camouflage does not make the wearer “invisible,” but tricks an observer’s eye and brain into failing to see a clear separation of the edges of the wearer’s profile from the colors and shapes around him. As a result, while the eye still sees the camouflaged warfighter, the brain – which processes images by filling in for the small area of color the eye actually sees – is tricked into accepting the pattern as part of the background and not as a person.

(Courtesy of http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/camouflage-today/)

Welcome, Brian Hodges

GMA is excited to announce the appointment of Brian W. Hodges to the position of Chief Executive Officer of GMA USA.  As part of his duties Mr. Hodges will also serve as the Chairman of the Board GMA USA.  Mr. Hodges brings with him an exceptional 28 years of defense industry experience, and nearly 20 years of proven success in various Executive Management roles at Lancer Systems, General Dynamics and Advanced Technical Products’ Intellitec Division.  Mr. Hodges has extensive experience in the development and manufacturing of products for all branches of the United States Military, foreign Ministries of Defence, and major prime contractors.  Products have included Tactical Deception Products (Camouflage and screening products), Chemical/Biological Defensive Systems (Detection, Collective Protection), Missile and Munition Systems (Delivery Systems, Rockets and Munitions), Gun Systems (Individual and Crew Served) and Composite/Advanced Material Components.  He will play a critical role in GMA through change management, process improvement, strategic planning and global business and operations management.  Mr. Hodges’ experiences will give GMA USA a unique competitive advantage as the New Year begins.