At Wuhan University in China, Chinese engineers have built an adorable lizard-shaped robot that can change its color to match its surroundings using artificial intelligence.

The three-dimensional robot model is covered with plasmonic displays. Up to 50 nanometer holes were drilled into glass sheets to make the displays, and then gold was placed on the glass to create tiny domes within each hole. The glass was finally coated with an electrolyte gel full of silver ions. Plasmons are created when light hits these displays. It determines the light-reflection and light-absorption properties of the display.

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The silver ions interact with the gold nanostructures, making changes on the display color when an electric field is applied. The robot determines its background color with the use of its built-in light sensor and yanks the electric field accordingly.

Only red, blue, and green colors are produced so far, but hopefully in the future, a wider range of colors can be displayed. Some of the existing e-paper or e-chem display approaches are electrophoretic, electrowetting, and cholesteric liquid crystalline.

Scientists are still figuring out precisely how real-life chameleons change their colors. Recent research has pointed out to tiny guanine crystals in cells underneath the skin. The spacing is altered between these crystals so that chameleons can alter the wavelength of reflected light.

The color of the robot is determined by tuning the electric field in a similar fashion to how the body of the chameleon adjusts its guanine crystals. Lead engineer Guoping Wang and his colleagues are envisioning that their innovation will be used by the military for camouflage-capable body armor or vehicles. But the displays needs some more work before can be possible.

Tagswuhan university, china, robot comouflage, Wuhan, chinese engineers