Imagine a future in which robots have learned to blend in with the surroundings, thanks to the possibility of changing their colors like chameleons. Actually no need to introduce such robots are already here. Robot capable of changing its color depending on the environment, created a robotics from Wuhan University of China. The machine performs this trick thanks to the many installed on a compact plasmonic (not to be confused with plasma) panels.
The panels themselves are glass with many microscopic holes with a diameter of 50 nanometers. The leaves are covered with a layer of gold, which creates a kind of hole over the dome. The top layer displays is an electrolyte gel with splashes of silver ions.
Artificial changing of the existing electric field causes the silver ions to be attracted to the gold particles, which results in a color change. The robot has a special sensor that monitors the environment in which the car is located and modifies accordingly the power of the electric field, resulting in surface changes its color and allows you to blend in with the surroundings.
The possibility of color change is still limited. Currently obtained change the color to red, green or blue. However, in the future we plan to give the display the ability to change to any color palette.
