Polaritonic meta-material combat identification
AssigneeBAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.
InventorsIgor I. Smolyaninov, Idan Mandelbaum, Louise C. Sengupta
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Abstract
An identification apparatus, capable of distinguishing between a first class of objects and a second class of objects. This identification apparatus includes an identification tag, which is capable of providing a certain reflection band and a certain thermal emission band. The identification apparatus also includes a thermal weapon sight which has a long-wave infrared band-pass filter. This band-pass filter passes through a desired range of wavelengths and filters out an undesired range of wavelengths. The reflection band and the thermal emission band are detectable within the desired range of wavelengths.
Claims19
An identification apparatus, capable of distinguishing between a first class of objects and a second class of objects, said identification apparatus comprising:
- an identification tag, said tag being capable of emitting a desired reflection band signal and a desired thermal emission band signal upon receiving an interrogation beam, wherein a respective said identification tag is attached to each object of said first class of objects and is not attached to objects of said second class of objects;
- and
- a thermal weapon sight for sending the interrogation beam, said thermal weapon sight having a long-wave infrared band-pass filter, wherein said band-pass filter passing a desired range of wavelengths and filtering out an undesired range of wavelengths, wherein said desired reflection band signal and said desired thermal emission band signal emitted by the identification tag attached to said first class of objects are within the desired range of wavelengths and passed by said band-pass filter, thereby distinguishing between the objects of the first class of objects and the objects of the second class of objects.
A method of detecting an object via thermal emission, said method comprising:
- applying a resistive heating mechanism to the object;
- sending an interrogation beam by a thermal weapon sight;
- upon receiving the interrogating beam;
- discharging a capacitor into said resistive heating mechanism to heat said object to a desired temperature at a low level of precision;
- comparing the temperature of said object as a result of said discharging to said desired temperature;
- supplying battery power, if the temperature of said object as a result of said discharging is lower than said desired temperature to heat said object to said desired temperature at a high level of precision;
- and
- detecting the object by the thermal weapon sight by detecting a thermal emission from the object when the temperature of said object is equal to the desired temperature.
A method of detecting an object, said method comprising:
- marking the object with an identification tag, said tag comprising a silicon substrate, a polaritonic layer formed on said silicon substrate, and a polymer layer formed on said polaritonic layer;
- sending an interrogation beam from a thermal weapon sight to the identification tag;
- thermally emitting a designated infrared band signal from said tag via reflection of the interrogation beam upon receiving the interrogation beam, wherein said designated infrared band signal is within a spectral range from approximately 8 μm to approximately 12 μm;
- filtering incoming infrared light through a band-pass filter of the thermal weapon sight, said band-pass filter passing a desired range of wavelengths which includes the spectral range and filtering out an undesired range or wavelengths;
- identifying said object upon receiving the designated infrared band signal which is passed by the band-pass filter, thereby detecting the object;
- and
- displaying said object on the thermal weapon sight.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.