Special uses of color and lighting have been used to camouflage soldiers and military equipment through the ages. This was obviously a bio inspired strategy borrowed from other species, as they use their natural coloring to blend into the trees and surrounding landscape. Since color and light involves various frequencies and shading, it is possible to slightly change the type of lighting used through goggles to reveal camouflaged or cloaked enemies. Let’s go ahead and talk about a new concept.
What we need is goggles which can systematically run through a rainbow of spectral frequencies, which will allow the user to see right through the camouflage as those frequencies change before their eyes, easily revealing whatever the enemy is trying to conceal. Infrared, ultraviolet, and along the visible spectrum are all sorts of different colors and frequencies. Inventing such a set of goggles should not be too difficult, and although they might be costly, they will certainly assist us in preventing the enemy of hiding their locations, or ambushing our troops.
There is a worthy paper to read on this topic titled; “True -Color Night Vision Cameras,” by Jason Kriesel and Nahum Gat (2007). Then if you search for it, you will find a patent filing for an anti-camouflage system which uses multi-frequency light spectrum strategies to un-mask concealment. What if we put this together with another concept of a 360-degree situational awareness vision system and then gave it to our special forces, and put it onto our robotic unmanned ground vehicles, surveillance vehicles, and ISR aerial assets?
For underwater use, we add a multi-beam sonar system for virtual 3-D mapping of the environment along with the above water usage of the goggles proposed above. All of this would be displayed on the goggles, along with a quick release to regular human eye vision with a single spring loaded side switch on the side of the goggles. (See Cite: Marine Geophysical Researches (2006) 27; 7-1 – DOI: 10.1007/s11001-005-0267-x or read; “Frontiers in Seafloor Mapping and Visualization,” by Larry A. Mayer).
Apparently, since the visual dynamics of seeing an object vary by frequency and medium, switching up the frequencies, and using combinations thereof might help us solve a lot of problems with camouflage, and dealing with visually obscured environments. It’s time that we took all of our challenges which are limited by the evolution of the human eye, and kindly discard them allowing us to use the tools we build to help us with this visually challenged handicap, therefore preventing the enemy from concealment or difficult environments from creating crisis. Please consider all this and think on it.