Experimental verification of active IR stealth technology by controlling the surface temperature using a thermoelectric element

In this paper, we propose a technique for IR low-observability that uses an active IR signal tuning through the real time control of the object surface temperature according to the varying background environment. This is achieved by applying the proper object surface temperature obtained to result in the minimum radiance difference between the object and the background. Experimental verification by using the thermoelectric temperature control element shows that the IR radiance contrast between the object and the background can be reduced up to 99% during the night and up to 95% during the day time as compared to the un-tuned original radiance contrast values. The stealth technology demonstrated in this paper may be applied for many military systems needed for the IR stealth performance when a suitable temperature control unit is developed