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Chameleon Technology

Invisibility technology

Floating city on Cronus ::
Image from Steve Bowers
The 'Floating' cities on Cronus are supported utility fog which is concealed by an outer layer of chameleon tech
Photonanotech transceivers utilising Optical Phased Array technology to allow invisibility and other optical effects. Specialised interlinked mesobots and nanobots enable both reception and transmission of photons.

Chameleon suit
Image from Steve Bowers
A modosophont using chameleontech to become semitransparent for aesthetic reasons
Chameleon technology can be used to conceal individual sophonts, vehicles and autonomous devices such as robots and probes, and infrastructure. Such a layer of optical phased array technology can also display a wide range of images and text, making it useful for advertising as well as augmented reality applications. Wearable chameleon technology is known as a chameleon suit, and the most advanced variants are the famous Janusuits available from Trillicon Arms and elsewhere.

Often chameleon technology is used to conceal unsightly features of a building, town, habitat or spacecraft, and has been used in many locations to conceal suporting structures, allowing a building to appear as if it were floating in mid-air. Many variants of utility fog incorporate a layer of OPA chhameleon tech on the outermost layer, making the fog appear transparent or allowing it to display other imagery.

As well as being widely used in stealthware, chameleontech can be used as a light source, and even as a potent laser weapon, although this also depends on energy storage and capacity. An object which is covered in an optical phased array can focus light with a large effective aperture, allowing a considerable amount of energy to be concentrated on a small area.

optical phased array 2
Image from Steve Bowers
A land-cruiser is concealed by chameleontech, with only a few minor optical distortions to give away its location)
 
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Appears in Topics
Nanotech
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Additional material by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 31 January 2002.

 
 
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