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Nanotech Paints For Military
pmacwill wrote to us with a recent article on Pennet in regards to the U.S. military's proposed use of nanotech paints. Actually, it goes beyond proposal -- and beyond paint, as it would allow vehicles to change camo patterns very easily, and would also repair micro-cracks and fractures without the need for service.
I'd be more interested in the medical uses ... fix cracks and clogs in the ole arteries, etc.
He is on the executive board of this project at Rice University over in the United States.
They're working on similar studies and experiments, and have been doing so since the late 1990s. From what I hear, it's going quite well and the funding is just extraordinary these days now that Republicans are in control of U.S. government policies these days.
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
Having been in the military and ground units on the R&D side of the house, its goes with out saying anything that is of an increased technical difficulty is more prone to failure and less likely to be repaired in a combat environment. Second what to say that this technology couldnt be easily detected over a regular paint job. We're assuming that sensors are dealing with the visible light spectrum, I'm sure these gems would send off thier own display of some sort. Given that maybe this is the answer to friendly fire?
Remember the 1970's custom van craze, with elaborate Frazetta-looking airbrush murals? Now imagine the same kitschy artwork, only animated. Are you having flashbacks? No, the Greatful Dead skeleton on that guy's van really is waving at you.
Or instead of mere bumper stickers, SUVs could now sport political blogs that cover the entire side of the vehicle. Meme warfare on wheels!
Another application: imagine you break the posted speed limit, and not only does your onboard compliance-monitor signal the highway patrol, but your vehicle starts flashing bright ugly blue to let everyone else know what you did...
>;K
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Yeah, I'm envisioning some enemy discovering the signal used to tell the paint to change color, then broadcasting a signal to turn all the US tanks hot pink.
:-)
(I mean, it's not like they're going to have frequency-hopping strong crypto in the nano-paint. Right?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
The sci-fi books have little bloodwork nanobots, star-trek-like replicators, and other, well, sci-fi uses. The only Real World application I've heard of before this was arrays of nanomirrors on microscopic rotors, and I don't know if that made it past the prototype stage.
This is real work. The army likes to throw money at a technology problem until it is solved. That probably means a real solution will come of this. And that's why this is News for Nerds, etc, and not just another sci-fi proposal.
John
Prototype by 2005? I doubt that. They admit to not even knowing what types of nanotech "gears and switches" they are going to need, let alone how to hook it all up to make the paint do what they want. How will they address individual pixels? How will they power it? Nanotech isn't magic, folks. As far as the military already having this technology, I doubt that too. Creating a coating with radar absorbing qualities is one thing, creating one that thinks and moves in a combat environment is entirely different.
Sounds like they've been smoking that "gotta spend our increased budget or lose it" crack.
One way to make color changing paint would be to create a grid of fins that could be moved closer together or farther apart. A butterflies wings are colored not with pigments, but with particles that have a gap sized to create interference cancelling out all but a specific wavelength of light. By adjusting the gap, maybe mechanically, maybe electrically, you could adjust the color.
Another way would be balls, with say 6 different spots of color on different sides. Rotate the ball to get different colors.
Another way would be pigment sacks, like a cuttlefish uses.
Now try to think about how to address all the pixels on, say, a tank, with any of those systems. Then think about how you would go about making a system like that self-repairing.
I would bet that by 2005 they have a prototype that looks bad, changes color slowly, fades quickly in sunlight, breaks down often, and doesn't self repair. They may have a working color changing paint by 2009, but I doubt they will get the self repairing bit down that soon.
Just thought about it a bit more. They may develop a self repairing undercoating which could fix small cracks in the metal or undercoating by reacting to oxidation and releasing a sealer or catalyst that would bond paint or metal It's making the color changing bit itself self repairing that sounds hard to me.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Imagine connecting the nontech-based paint job to the vehicle's speedometer. As the vehicle moves, the camo pattern could scroll at the same speed in the opposite direction. In the proper environment, this could make the vehicle difficult to spot when moving, since the observer's eyes would be presented with data not normally present in nature.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?