Color and Morphology Camouflaging using Biomimetic Scales

Abstract

Due to obvious evolutionary advantages to both predator and prey, a rich gamut of camouflaging strategies exists in nature. Engineered camouflaging generally involves adapting bioinspired strategies to produce superior concealment and disguise in synthetic systems. Of special interest is dynamic, active camouflaging, which can rapidly conceal structures depending upon the background landscape. Herein, exciting advances are made by mimicking Cephalopod strategies. An alternative geometrically structured biomimetic scale‐based strategy, which is purely mechanical and simple but at the same time rapid, tailorable and tunable, and inherently multifunctional, is presented. Surfaces covered by biomimetic scales that are themselves covered by lenticular images are investigated. A concurrent programming strategy to tune surface morphology and color by controlling the angle of individual scales is introduced. As an example, a pneumatic design to control individual‐scale orientations using airflow, which enables both morphology and color camouflaging in less than a second, is demonstrated. Engineered camouflaging provides an ability for on‐demand morphology and color control and offers protection from visual recognition. A camouflaging mechanism is proposed, which covers a surface using bioinspired scales and provides morphology control through manipulating scale configuration and color control upon using lenticular images on the scale surface.