DARPA to Create New 'Invisibility Cloak' Smokescreen for US Military Instead of White Phosphorus

The new smokescreen is expected to be safe to not only come into contact with, but also inhale, unlike the current obscurants.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is now trying to create a special obscurant to conceal troops during battle as part of its new Coded Visibility (CV) program.

"The teams we selected aim to develop new types of non-hazardous obscurant particulates that can be tailored to provide asymmetry – that is to allow US and allied forces to see the enemy through the plume in one direction, while the adversary is unable to see through the plume in the opposite direction," Rohith Chandrasekar, CV program manager in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office said.

This process is called “passive asymmetry,” which Chandrasekar compared to a one-way mirror.

“We’ll also explore active asymmetry using novel materials that can be tuned in real time to potentially enable dynamic adaptation of the obscurant’s properties during a mission,” he added.

The research program began in July 2022 and is set to run for the next four-and-a-half years.

The 'invisibility cloak' aims to replace infamous white phosphorus, currently used by the American forces - it creates a smoke screen, but also causes severe burns, resulting in gruesome injuries.