Make Your Own Invisibility Cloak With a 3D Printer 80
cylonlover writes "Invisibility cloaks have been around in various forms since 2006, when the first cloak based on optical metamaterials was demonstrated. The design of cloaking devices has come a long way in the past seven years, as illustrated by a simple, yet highly effective, radar cloak developed by Duke University Professor Yaroslav Urzhumov, that can be made using a hobby-level 3D printer."
Meeting this professor (Score:2)
I'd love to meet this professor, and be like "what? did I hear something? who is there! I don't see anyone!"
Re:Meeting this professor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meeting this professor (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it's invisible to that spectrum. And if you're invisible to radar, it is a limited form of 'invisible'.
Besides, inradarible sounds stupid. :-P
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IIRC ever since Champions 4th edition you could buy your invisibility to specific sense groups, and vision was further subdivided into normal, IR/UV, and radar/radio. So *clearly* this counts as Invisibility, since it costs points.
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b-2 pilots approve.
Re:This is a hunk of plastic... (Score:5, Funny)
I think it can be integrated in flying cars, to have invisible 3D-printed flying cars.
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It can also be integrated into unmanned drones, to have radar-invisible unmanned drones. Convenient for popping over a border real quick and taking a look around without alerting local air forces.
ok (Score:2)
as long as the car keys are not invisible too.
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I think it can be integrated in flying cars, to have invisible 3D-printed flying cars.
I believe that this is already the case. Leastwise, I've never seen one... have you?
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Is ANYONE in a rush to make their consumer products invisible?
How about a stealthy invisabra for my car.
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simple, yet highly effective, radar cloak
I know they used the word 'invisibility' which implies visual, but they do identify it as being invisible to radar.
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Move along (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to see here
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Less than 10% of infinity?
The electromagnetic spectrum doesn't exactly have an upper bounds (unless you count theoretical limits that are extremely likely to be disproven.
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Less than 10% of infinity?
Of course some one just HAS to bring in the theoretical limits of the subject and muddy my point. I'm an engineer, I deal in practicality. Don't you have something better to do?
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Call me a nitpicker, but to me "invisible" is the opposite of "visible", which is the defining characteristic of what we call visible light. Being being undetectable to 10GHz frequencies, while impressive in its own light (haha), is most certainly not invisibility.
I DON'T see what you did there! "Being partially invisible by being undetectable..."
Haha, Good One!
You're right, full EM spectrum cloaking is out of our grasp at present, and the fact that you can print a sub-light frequency invisibility cloak with a hobby grade 3D printer pales in comparison to making multiple words disappear at broadband speeds with a high tech computing device. My hat's off to you good sir!
I wonder other are in there?
I , but can't tell am doing right.
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Suddenly, large off-white disc shaped vehicles will be sought after for speed enthusiasts!
Doesn't abscense imply presence? (Score:2)
Wouldn't this be similar to black holes in that although you can't see them, behavior of stars around them and energy emanating from them suggest that they are there?
Re:Doesn't abscense imply presence? (Score:4, Informative)
Though I think with this cloak, you wouldn't know specifically where it is. Radio waves warping around it would be received but not in the correct location unless you projected a grid of frequencies directly at it and then watched what geometric pattern they were received in then reversed it. You wouldn't know the object's exact location otherwise. Any cloak that simply makes the radar waves disappear though would show up easily. I believe this one does wrap the waves around though, instead of just absorbing them, just they wouldn't arrive quite correctly aligned on the other side the way they would if there was no object there so like I said, a grid would tell you the radar waves are being bent by something.
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Modern AESA radars [wikipedia.org] do not have single transmit-receive elements but are arrays of many elements. Modern fleets and air combat wings also usually share the radar data via datalinks so they have information of more than one radar available.
Re:Doesn't abscense imply presence? (Score:5, Informative)
Read up on how they work ;-)
In short, no, they're not like blackholes.
The principle behind them is that emmissons heading into the cloak are routed around the object and then leave, and here's the clever bit, in a direction and intensity equal to what would happen if the invisible object wasn't there.
A drawback of this is, if you were building your cloak on the observable spectrum, if your inside the cloak you can't see anything outside of it (as all the incoming light gets diverted around you)! Admittedly it's only a draw back if looking around you is important, there's good reasons not to care and cool applications e.g. building a sea platform that is invisible to incoming waves (google it, my brain hurts from remembering so much already)
Apparently it works (Score:2)
It isn't a cloak. (Score:2)
It isn't a cloak, it's a frisbee with some badly made holes in it.
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endless possibilities (Score:4, Funny)
"ahhhhh, 3D printers, is there anything they can't do"
"certainly Homer, they can't make doughnuts"
!!!!
".....stupid 3D printers......."
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http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:25897 [thingiverse.com]
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no, too much air between the strings of dough will make a kind of fritter rather than a donut upon frying.
plunger driven doughnut maker or doughnut dough cutter is the way to go
I followed the instructions... (Score:5, Funny)
...but now I can't find my 3D printer
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But how... (Score:2)
...do I print out the Marauder's Map?
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You probably won't learn those spells until at least your 4th year at Hogwart's, and you might need to find some people who are pretty skilled at magic and mischief (and maybe even turning themselves into an animagus). ;-)
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Let's make it personally relevant.
Inform me when they've got one I attach to a Ducati, to make it invisible to radar.
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Great! (Score:2)
Great! Now I can make my new 3D gun invisible
Holster (Score:2)
Can I make a holster out of this and carry my Glock through the scanners at the airport? No need to print a stupid plastic gun.
I'm just asking this to get crazy California legislators' panties in a bunch.
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I'm guessing it's possible if you can tune it to the frequencies used by the scanners and make it spherical to hide the gun inside.
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The simpler method is just to have a fake fat belly,
Nothing fake about it.
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or more practical cars that are invisible to police radar speed guns. speed with impunity.
Oh No.... What DHS gonna do now? (Score:1)
Between the printable weaponry and this printable cloak..... Maybe those who create enemies need to stop doing that.
Hmmm, now I wonder if mods will cloak me...
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I wonder if mods will cloak me...
Who said that?
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For a moment I read "can be made using a hobbit-level 3D printer".
Well, hobbit bodies have a different refractive index than the pex material used here, It might get a bit gruesome, but you can use the same basic principal in TFA with hobbits.
Off to craft a new one-ring, I take it?
I wonder if we can make an invisible gun... (Score:1)
Regulate 3D Printing Now! (Score:3)
it's for radar only (Score:3)
You can see him through the holes. It works for radar not for human eyes.
Not Verifiable (Score:2)
OMG!!! (Score:1)
First undetectable plastic guns printed on a 3D printer.
Now we can have undetectable assassins as well.
Ninjas are now obsolete.
There ought to be a law against this sort of thing. Won't someone PLEASE think of the Children?!?!?
picture (Score:1)
picture or it didn't happen
Don't anybody tell Leland Yee about this (Score:1)
Be careful not to tell Californian senator Leland Yee, he is already throwing a fit about 3D printed guns, if you tell him that an INVISIBILITY CLOAK can be printed with a 3D printer, then that's it, the guy will have a freaking heart attack while pushing for a bill that would declare 3D printers military grade technology that must be strictly prohibited for civilian use.
I can imagine him talking about it: they will have 3D printed guns and they will put on their 3D printed invisibility cloaks and then they
Not enough detail (Score:2)