A group of engineers from the Faculty of Science at Donghua University in China has made magic with science. They created something quite similar to an invisibility cloak, to the fascination of half the world. And as? Chu Junhao, a 78-year-old veteran physicist and leader of the project, presented the invention with a mind-blowing promise: “In the future, everyone will have an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter.”
Everything is recorded on video. Bilibili, China’s leading video-sharing platform, hosted an event in late October called “Super Science Night.” Word had already spread that the big show would be on Junhao. When the physicist finally appeared on stage, he asked two collaborators to hold a semi-transparent panel in front of him. You could see his legs.
Everything was quick: the assistants turned the panel 90 degrees and voila, the invisibility cloak went into action. His legs were gone. But you could see the details of the rest of the scene that, technically, the scientist was covering. The public went crazy. “Science fiction invisibility will become reality as invisibility technology and materials develop,” Junhao explained, according to ChinaDaily.
The scientist is director of the Faculty of Sciences at Donghua University in Shanghai. He is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Junhao explained that the “magic” was possible thanks to a lenticular grid that allows this optical effect.
How the invisibility cloak works
The thing goes a little like this: The grating is composed of rows of small convex cylindrical lenses. These lenses have a curvature that causes light to refract, or bend. When light passes through a convex cylindrical lens, it is compressed into a thin strip.
If we have many lenses like these, we can compress the object behind them into an infinite number of identical thin strips. Due to the effect of light, the object is divided into several images that are too small to be perceived by the eye. An invisibility cloak with a lot of science, without a doubt.
“More invisibility equipment will change our lives, such as invisible rooms that can provide greater privacy and invisible headphones,” Junhao said, opening up a universe of possibilities for those watching the event. “Invisible clothes!” one person wrote. “A must for people with social anxiety,” said another.
But Junhao is not the first. Chinese scientists have long been pursuing invisibility. Last year, for example, another group of researchers presented InvisDefense, a coat with the ability to bypass security cameras and make you invisible.
More cases
This other invisibility cloak was developed by scientists at Wuhan University. The device uses special camouflage patterns to baffle security cameras and prevent them from recognizing the user.
Security cameras typically detect human bodies through motion and contour recognition. InvisDefense interferes with the computer vision recognition algorithm and prevents the camera from recognizing the person passing in front. The system finds the least conspicuous patterns that could disable computer vision.
And at night, when the cameras take advantage of infrared thermal imaging, the coat uses integrated thermal devices. Thus, it emits different temperatures to confuse them. This type of invisibility cloak won first prize in a contest sponsored by Huawei Technologies. This technology, however, makes you invisible to cameras, but not to the human eye. If an operator is watching the image transmission, they will discover you without problems.