ARLA/CLUSTER: A futura invisibilidade das antenas dos radioamadores

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Hamfest Talk shows Invisible Surprises

With a forgotten technology first used by Marconi , Chip Cohen W1YW,
brought Marconi’s “metamaterials” to a whole new level--he made them
do a disappearing act.

At the Boxboro Convention in Massachusetts on Aug 25, W1YW gave the
first public demonstration of an actual invisibility cloak. Well over
a 150 eager radio hams and guests saw a live demonstration of metal
mast disappear at microwaves, over a wide bandwidth, by partially
covering it with a Marconi-inspired invisibility cloak.

W1YW’s invisibility cloak is the first actual device that makes things
disappear. Using fractals as resonators, it slip-streams the waves
around an obstacle, and in that process hides the obstacle completely.
It joins these resonators/antennas with a very close (but not
touching) spacing--an idea that came to Marconi and his collaborator
Franklin in 1919. “Marconi never came close to making an invisibility
cloak, but everyone using metamaterials--those closely spaced
resonators-- owes that basic idea to him.”

W1YW’s invisibility cloak development was a slow one over a dozen
years. “It harps back to work I would do tinkering with antennas when
the bands were dead.” The first invisibility cloak demonstration
finally came to fruition in 2009.

While science fiction and Harry Potter have fascinated people with the
notion of the invisibility cloak, W1YW’s invention is the only one
that works. W1YW has just received the very first, and basic, patent
for invisibility cloaks--U.S. patent 8,253,639.

W1YW also showed a very large invisibility cloak with nearly 10,000
little resonator/antennas making it the largest--in number-- antenna
array in the world. “ I was delighted to show something very special
in terms of the size and type of objects cloaked. The general public
will be aware of this soon, but I wanted my fellow radio amateurs to
have the fun of seeing it first” . Added W1YW: ”This changes
everything.”