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British company developing invisible tanks

LONDON (UPI) -- British military scientists say they're working to develop an army of invisible tanks ready for use on the battlefield within five years.

The armored vehicles will use a technology known as "e-camouflage" that would let images on the vehicle's hull change to match their environment, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Sophisticated electronic sensors attached the tank's hull would project images of the surrounding environment back on the outside of the vehicle, helping it blend into the landscape and evade attack, the report said.

Until recently such ideas were thought to be the stuff of science fiction, but scientists at the British defense company BAE Systems now think near invisibility will soon become reality.

BAE scientists are also looking at other battlefield innovations to increase troop protection while making vehicles more lethal.

Scientists at BAE are said to be close to developing a form of transparent armor -- much tougher than bullet-proof glass -- which could be used in turrets on the sides of armored vehicles to improve visibility.

A technology called "biometric integration" uses advanced computer programs to analyze crowds and search for potential threats by analyzing suspicious behavior in groups or individuals, the newspaper said.

Copyright 2011 by United Press International

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what the fu...? haven't heard of this yet. found this on howstuffworks.com


The tank is coated in silicon, effectively turning the vehicle into a highly reflective movie screen. Video cameras positioned on the tank take real-time footage of the surrounding environment, and projectors show the images on the surface of the tank. To observers at secret trials conducted by the British army in October 2007, the only thing visible was the images of the terrain projected onto the tank.

The British military plans on having the tanks battlefield-ready by 2012, but this technique may be short-lived due to some drawbacks. Cameras or projectors may fail, and from different angles, the tank may be visible. It's a somewhat clumsy and difficult way of rendering an object invisible (HowStuffWorks discussed this technology in another article on invisibility cloaks). Using cameras and projectors creates a smoke-and-mirrors style optical illusion, and the lead researcher at the British test isn't entirely satisfied with the technology.