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US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms
PenguinRadio writes "This is being reported in a few places, most notably USA Today which has an article about the US Army teaming up with MIT to develop a new nanotechnology-based outfit for our soldiers that can detect bio hazards, injury, and other funky things. The 5 year, $50 million grant also wants to look at bending light around the uniform to create some sort of invisibility." CNET has another story. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies has its own web page, of course.
I'd imagine they could also use nanotechnology or piezoelectric sheets to generate enough electricity from body movement. I can't imagine nanobots use much power. Even while standing still, your body is moving a lot.
In other words INVISIBILITY!!
Or am I mistaken... Soldiers will still need light to hit their eyes to be able to see.. I guess a pair of floating eyes won't raise too much suspicion.
What about infrared? Soldiers will still glow in that region.
Jumping 20 ft with some sort of exoskeleton still seems unlikely to me - remember, the landing deceleration won't be too much different than jumping off a 20 ft building without any exoskeleton (that hurts!).
It just doesn't seem plausible. The only thing useful I could see an exoskeleton useful for would be to lift/cary heavy loads. Any other ideas?
..........FULL STOP.
As I said when I submitted this 5 hours ago(no I'm not bitter:-) ), is that this technology has potential for very good non-military uses. The enchancing of strength could help people with Muscular Schirrosis move around more freely, or help people who've had a leg smashed by a car or something walk again. Lots of fuzzy warm stuff could result from the development project that can benefit humanity(as well as letting otakus live out anime dreams of a exosuit).
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Indeed, when I first heard of a proposal to do this, circa 1986, it was referred to as "chameleon cloth".
With the right software, I bet you could get by with perhaps just 4 cameras. The tricky part is having the fabric be durable, and having the signals that travel to the pixels be fault tolerant. Also, it's got to be non-stick. Otherwise, any damage to the fabric, or anything stuck to it ruins the whole thing. OTOH, if the enemy delivers bright green sticky stuff that rains down on the soldiers, it will also rain down on the terrain. Another possible tactic is to fire a flare that backlights the soldiers with a strobe. Any latency in the camo system will be detectable, although cave-dwelling terrorists aren't likely to have such tech.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Unlike some other posters, at least you are in the realm of reality, so I think I'll respond.
Yes, fiber optics can bend light. The problem is that they are highly directional -- only incoming light from a very narrow angle will be piped. If you've ever had to splice two fiber optic cables together, you know just how difficult this is. So while a very narrow cone of light could be routed in principle, most light is just going to be reflected or absorbed as usual.
Infrared camo is more interesting. Yes, you could probably arrange for something like this. You'd effectively be wearing a thermos outfit, and it could potentially get very hot inside. It's unclear to me that you could built up heat for any significant duration without forcing the soldier into heat exhaustion. Yes, you could install an air conditioner, but thermodynamics tells us that even more heat is generated in the process.
Your best bet is probably not to try to capture all of the heat, but retain it briefly in an outer suit layer, and let it equilibrate to the mean temperature of the environment before releasing it. You would still be radiating in the infrared, but you would be nearly indistinguishable from your background.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Oh please. Energy isn't the issue, it's acceleration. If you stiffen the armour, you just get smushed against the hard armour instead of the hard ground. In fact, stiffening is the last thing you want to do; you want as much articulation as possible to minimise the impulse. This "leap tall buildings in a single bound" claim is pure fantasy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.