Advanced Stealth – Part 2
by, Concept Acvtivity Research Vault ( CARV )
April 21, 2009
CALIFORNIA, Los Angeles – April 21, 2009 – The Los Angeles Times article ( below ) mentions NORTHROP GRUMMAN prototype development testing of lighter than air stealth type dirigibles in the Washington, D.C. Metroplex Area ( New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. ).
Might central Virginia’s NORTHROP GRUMMAN SPERRY MARINE DIVISION ( U.S. Route 29 / South Seminole Trail, Charlottesville, Virginia ) test site monitor new stealth technology equipped aerial vehicles?
Airship vessel ships and crafts whose surface skin material that can be remotely-controlled to illuminate like an artificial star or approaching aircraft with landing lights brightly shining downward from reaction to ground-based InfraRed-like invisible light pumped onto a stealth dirigible ( lighter-than-air, pressurized helium gas, aerial platform, LEO vehicle ), a surveillance vessel whose external surface skin has the technological capability to gather invisible light and convert that hidden light into a refracted visible white-light spectrum like a extremely large floodlight / landing-light / strobe light with emissions emminating from buoyant airborne surveillance platforms. Imagine, central Virginia Greene County western quadrant foothills – near Rockingham County – with an artificial star, a snooping blimp that doesn’t look like a blimp but just an innocent looking star above in the night sky.
Conventional technologies would normally be comprised of bulky and heavy items such as arrays of refractive mirrors, heat diffusers, high-energy collectors / converters, high-energy power supplies, and even more that could not possibly be launched inside a lighter-than-air dirigible airship platform; at least not a blimp that would still wish to remain invisible or un-observable from the ground.
If the craft, vehicle, or vessel surface skin was made from a new electronic sensitivity controlled material, like electronic textile materials the U.S. Department of Defense ( DoD ) DARPA MEMS Biofutures Program has been working on for over 10-years, it might be a material so advanced that it could – on demand / command – ’react’ to any spectrum of invisible light ( blue-green laser communication beamlight ) and be controlled from a long distance wireless control station that might make anything possible. What about super secret electronic textiles and hidden super characteristic capabilities?
What about ‘transparent airships’ and other the new advanced stealth technologies?
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Scientists Create Observable Fiber Webs That See
July 2006
In a radical departure from conventional optic lens type materials, MIT scientists developed a sophisticated optical system comprised of mesh type webbed light detection fibers.
Having a number of advantages over its conventional lens predecessors, the constructs of this new fiber is currently capable of measuring the direction, intensity and phase of light ( a property used to describe a light wave ) without the lenses, filters, or detector array classic elements of conventional optical systems such as eyes or cameras.
Researchers expect the new system will be capable of much more.
Potential applications range from ‘improved space telescopes’ to ‘clothing that provides situational awareness’ to soldiers, or ‘those visually impaired’.
The transparent fiber-webs could even enable huge computer screens to be activated with beams of light instead of the touch of a finger. “We could use light to enhance interaction with computers and even gaming systems,” said Professor Yoel Fink of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Research Lab of Electronics, leader of the team. “It’s intriguing–the idea of touching with light.”
The scientists report the work in the June 25 online edition of Nature Materials, and it is featured on the cover of the July print issue of the magazine.
The human eye, digital and film cameras, and even the Hubble space telescope rely on lenses and detector surfaces ( like the retina ) to create images. But while these systems deliver excellent images, they are constrained by their size, weight, fragility and limited field of view.
In contrast, the fiber webs are flexible and lightweight. Plus, a fiber web in the shape of a sphere can sense the entire volume of space around it, according to Fink.
“When you’re looking at something with your eyes, there’s a particular direction you’re looking in,” says Ayman Abouraddy a research scientist in Fink’s lab. “The field of view is defined around that direction. Depending on the lens, you may be able to capture a certain field of view around that direction, but that’s it. Until now, most every optical system was limited by an optical axis or direction.”
In addition to having an unlimited field of view, the fiber sphere can also detect the direction of incoming light. Light enters the transparent sphere at one point and exits at another, providing a directional reference back to the light source.
Fink’s team has also created a flat, two-dimensional web of fibers and placed two such webs in parallel. These constructs, which can measure the intensity of incoming light, are capable of generating rough images of objects placed near them, such as the shape of a letter “E” cut stencil-like from paper and lit from behind. The image shows up on a computer screen, reconstructed from a light intensity distribution measured by the webs.
The fibers used in the webs are about 1 millimeter in diameter. They consist of a photoconductive glass core with metal electrodes that run along the length of the core, all surrounded by a transparent polymer insulator.
The fibers can detect light anywhere along their length, producing a change in current in an external electrical circuit. While one fiber on its own cannot detect the exact location of an incoming beam of light, when many fibers are arrayed in a web, their points of intersection provide the exact coordinates of the beam. A computer assimilates the data generated by the web and translates it for the user.
If the fibers were woven into a textile, for instance, an embedded computer could provide information on a small display screen or even audibly.
Improving the imaging power of the fiber webs will require reducing the diameter of the fibers and creating denser webs. Fink says he’s not certain whether the new technology will one day replicate human vision. “Just the idea of imaging with a transparent object is a true eye opener,” he said.
Reference(s)
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SOURCE: The Los Angeles Times ( Los Angeles, California, USA )
Scientists Create Observable Fiber Webs That See
July 2006
In a radical departure from conventional optic lens type materials, MIT scientists developed a sophisticated optical system comprised of mesh type webbed light detection fibers.March 13, 2009
Having a number of advantages over its conventional lens predecessors, the constructs of this new fiber is currently capable of measuring the direction, intensity and phase of light ( a property used to describe a light wave ) without the lenses, filters, or detector array classic elements of conventional optical systems such as eyes or cameras.
Researchers expect the new system will be capable of much more.
Potential applications range from ‘improved space telescopes’ to ‘clothing that provides situational awareness’ to soldiers, or ‘those visually impaired’.
The transparent fiber-webs could even enable huge computer screens to be activated with beams of light instead of the touch of a finger. “We could use light to enhance interaction with computers and even gaming systems,” said Professor Yoel Fink of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Research Lab of Electronics, leader of the team. “It’s intriguing–the idea of touching with light.”
The scientists report the work in the June 25 online edition of Nature Materials, and it is featured on the cover of the July print issue of the magazine.
The human eye, digital and film cameras, and even the Hubble space telescope rely on lenses and detector surfaces ( like the retina ) to create images. But while these systems deliver excellent images, they are constrained by their size, weight, fragility and limited field of view.
In contrast, the fiber webs are flexible and lightweight. Plus, a fiber web in the shape of a sphere can sense the entire volume of space around it, according to Fink.
“When you’re looking at something with your eyes, there’s a particular direction you’re looking in,” says Ayman Abouraddy a research scientist in Fink’s lab. “The field of view is defined around that direction. Depending on the lens, you may be able to capture a certain field of view around that direction, but that’s it. Until now, most every optical system was limited by an optical axis or direction.”
In addition to having an unlimited field of view, the fiber sphere can also detect the direction of incoming light. Light enters the transparent sphere at one point and exits at another, providing a directional reference back to the light source.
Fink’s team has also created a flat, two-dimensional web of fibers and placed two such webs in parallel. These constructs, which can measure the intensity of incoming light, are capable of generating rough images of objects placed near them, such as the shape of a letter “E” cut stencil-like from paper and lit from behind. The image shows up on a computer screen, reconstructed from a light intensity distribution measured by the webs.
The fibers used in the webs are about 1 millimeter in diameter. They consist of a photoconductive glass core with metal electrodes that run along the length of the core, all surrounded by a transparent polymer insulator.
The fibers can detect light anywhere along their length, producing a change in current in an external electrical circuit. While one fiber on its own cannot detect the exact location of an incoming beam of light, when many fibers are arrayed in a web, their points of intersection provide the exact coordinates of the beam. A computer assimilates the data generated by the web and translates it for the user.
If the fibers were woven into a textile, for instance, an embedded computer could provide information on a small display screen or even audibly.
Improving the imaging power of the fiber webs will require reducing the diameter of the fibers and creating denser webs. Fink says he’s not certain whether the new technology will one day replicate human vision. “Just the idea of imaging with a transparent object is a true eye opener,” he said.
Reference(s)
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times ( Los Angeles, California, USA )
Pentagon Plans Blimp To Spy From New Heights
by, Julian E. Barnes
March 13, 2009
USA, Washington, D.C. – The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400,000,000.00 (USD) million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10-years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.
“It is absolutely revolutionary,” Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship – describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.
The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary’s movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area – the Afghanistan and Pakistan border, for example – would dramatically improve military intelligence.
“It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted,” Dahm said. “When you only have a short time view – whether it is a few hours or a few days – that is not enough to put the picture together.”
The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.
If successful, the dirigible – brainchild of the Air Force and the Pentagon research arm [ DARPA ] – could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.
However, it marks the return to a form of flight that has stirred anxiety and doubt since the 1937 Hindenburg disaster – 36 people were killed when that airship went up in flames in New Jersey.
The military has used less sophisticated tethered blimps, called ‘aerostats’, to conduct surveillance around military bases in Iraq.
But flying at 65,000-ft., the giant airship would be nearly impossible to see beyond the range of any hand-held missile, yet safe from most fighter planes.
And its range would be such that the spy craft could operate at the distant edges of any military theater, probably out of the range of surface-to-air [ SAM ] missiles as well.
The Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities have improved dramatically in the last 5-years with the expansion of the Predator and other drones [ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ( UAV ) ]. Although such craft can linger over an area for a long time, they do not watch constantly.
The giant airship military value would come from its radar system giant antenna – would allow the military to see farther and with more detail than it can now.
“Being able to observe threats [and] understand what is happening is really the game-changing piece here,” Dahm said.
The dirigible will be filled with helium and powered by an innovative system that uses solar panels to recharge hydrogen fuel cells. Military officials said those underlying technologies, plus a very lightweight hull, were critical to making the project work.
“The things we had to do here were not trivial; they were revolutionary,” said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [ DARPA ], the Pentagon research arm.
The U.S. Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014. The prototype will be one-third ( 1/3rd ) as long as the planned surveillance craft known as ISIS ( Integrated Sensor Is Structure ), because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship.
While the military says the craft is closer to a blimp than a zeppelin, which has a rigid external structure, officials usually call the project an airship. Blimps get their shape from pressurized helium gas.
The Pentagon has not yet awarded a contractor to build the prototype. Earlier work was done by NORTHRUP GRUMMAN in Redondo Beach, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and other locations – and by LOCKHEED MARTIN in Palmdale, California; Akron, Ohio; and Denver, Colorado.
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