Missile Movement Camouflage

Posted by admin

June 6, 2006 |

Typical missile launches and trajectories have been rather easy to spot. Intended targets see the missile launch and can easily see forward progress. But military engineers have once again looked to mother nature to find inspiration and help. It seems that the dragonfly is a wonder of aeronautical engineering. It’s dragging tail actually aids flight - but that is a piece for later. What also interests scientists is how dragonflies stalk and attack their prey.

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It seems that dragonflies have a complex stalking system that fools prey. A dragonfly moves with the prey’s perspective to give the illusion that it is not stalking. And when the prey finally realizes it is indeed being stalked, well, it’s lunch. Engineers are now using the same tactic to camouflage a missile’s advancement toward an intended target.

McOwan and Anderson at the Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London, have studied dragonflies and also created computer simulations that prove this hypothesis. People are fooled by this movement. But what about radars and heat seeking devices? If you launch multiple missiles in this fashion, radars can be fooled into thinking that there is only one target. Also, missiles fired in this fashion can house heat flares that will fool heat seekers. The effect is like flying out of the sun. Interesting technology.

[tags]dragonfly missile camouflage, dragonfly stalking techniques, dragonfly camouflage[/tags]

[Picture source: Newscientist, 28 June 2003, from an article by Duncan Graham-Rowe]

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