Adaptive Camouflage

Hey Guys

This is a daunting project for me and it has been running around in my

mind for awhile now, I want to use a few components form sparkfun to create "Adaptive camouflage"

and I want to do it by myself as it is the first step for me into the unguided world of Arduino programming.

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8618 http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9220

Concept

I want to use these components above to create a simple circuit to help hide or "comouflage my UAV.

One on the left hand side you will see what they call a color sensors and the right hand side a Arduino ,What I want to do is use the sensor and install it above the wing to detect the color of the overall sky's above it and process it to drive a few (or one multi color)LEDs at the base of the fuselage pointed at the shadows of the the wings and in effect make it less visable to the naked

But as I have no programming expierance to talk of I need the communities help!

My finger is hovering over the checkout botton in sparkfun but thought ill ask the skillfull and wize people we have floating about .

I realize for my first programming expierance this is probably silly but hey I like it in the deep end.!

Help needed on.

Any advice on how i would achieve this ,what parts I should rather use,why's to do this and once I get the parts programming advice would be greatly appreciated.

I hope I can get this to work as i would much rather make something that i can use on my UAV then just leave on the desktop as paperweight.

Thanx your comments are welcome!

You have jumped in but there are plenty of tutorials.

You have a colour sensor (those sensors are reputed to be brilliant), an arduino and an RGB LED. The colour sensor sees the colour you have pointed it at and the RGB LED produces the colour. Now what I believe you mean to accomplish is that with the colour sensor pointing up to see the sky, this colour will then be produced onto the wing underside to reduce the difference in colour between the wings and the sky.

Its a nice idea but you will need more than an RGB LED to accomplish it. The LED will produce a spot of coloured light only. What you require is a perfectly diffuse colour spread across the entire wing underside with the correct luminance. I cannot think of any way a normal person could accomplish this and have it flyable.

The non-normal ways that come to mind are:

OLED wing underside - luminance and colour and perfectly linear across the area thanks to the being individual LEDs effectively. Who could afford to try and build something like this :D

6mm plastic diffuse layer (using 5mm standard LEDs) - RGB LEDs at one end with diffuse area showing the colour deteriorating towards the end. Do plastic wings fly?

Metamaterial skin - metamaterial tuned to visible spectrum would absorb "all" light and render the craft basically black and the night sky not just stealth bomber black.

If you are worried about being spotted then add rubber sheeting. Its not exactly RAM but will help in the dead of night. Submarines do it to absorb sonar signals. It might make the plane heavy though. You could of course paint it black and sand it.

Replies

Lew Payne January 16, 2011 at 11:00am

On a more serious note, you'll need a diffuser for the "lighting" that you use. I have no idea how much weight this will add, but you can study the MAVOM resin diffusers (use google chrome to translate automatically)...

http://www.mavom.nl/default.asp?CID=228&IID=2046
Lew Payne January 16, 2011 at 10:47am

Get some high-power black LED's, and shine them at full brightness in the night sky. Your UAV will be perfectly camouflaged and blend right in.
Ritchie January 15, 2011 at 3:44pm

You have jumped in but there are plenty of tutorials.

You have a colour sensor (those sensors are reputed to be brilliant), an arduino and an RGB LED. The colour sensor sees the colour you have pointed it at and the RGB LED produces the colour. Now what I believe you mean to accomplish is that with the colour sensor pointing up to see the sky, this colour will then be produced onto the wing underside to reduce the difference in colour between the wings and the sky.

Its a nice idea but you will need more than an RGB LED to accomplish it. The LED will produce a spot of coloured light only. What you require is a perfectly diffuse colour spread across the entire wing underside with the correct luminance. I cannot think of any way a normal person could accomplish this and have it flyable.

The non-normal ways that come to mind are:

OLED wing underside - luminance and colour and perfectly linear across the area thanks to the being individual LEDs effectively. Who could afford to try and build something like this :D

6mm plastic diffuse layer (using 5mm standard LEDs) - RGB LEDs at one end with diffuse area showing the colour deteriorating towards the end. Do plastic wings fly?

Metamaterial skin - metamaterial tuned to visible spectrum would absorb "all" light and render the craft basically black and the night sky not just stealth bomber black.

If you are worried about being spotted then add rubber sheeting. Its not exactly RAM but will help in the dead of night. Submarines do it to absorb sonar signals. It might make the plane heavy though. You could of course paint it black and sand it.
Chris McNair January 15, 2011 at 3:39pm

Just some rough calcs and a guess on weight tell me you would need 300 of these sensors to cover a 12'x36" wing. At .50g each (guessing) that's 150g for one side. Could be heavy!
Ken January 15, 2011 at 3:31pm

The sky is bright. Really, really bright. LEDs don't have a chance.

Keep your fuse narrow. Make your wing & tail surface with thin carbon fiber spars, balsa ribs, and cover in clear polyester film (monokote, coverite, etc.)

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Adaptive Camouflage

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