Angel 28 Personal Armour and Support System

Active Camouflage


The A28 PASS has a surface layer which is composed of photographic sensors and a layer of digital display fabric. The sensors are incredibly sensitive to light and can pick up more detail than most cameras of its day. The readings from these sensors are sent to the system AI located in the rear of the helmet, and it in return calculates light locations and

then sends signals to the digital display fabric to display the calculated image.

This system is extremely efficient but it is by no means perfect. When standing still a camouflaged user is totally invisible to the naked eye even from close range, however at around extreme close range (ten metres or less) the natural distortion which is unavoidable begins to become noticable, and the user appears slightly darker than his/her surroundings.

Light detection systems are easilly fooled by this camouflage at medium to long ranges. The main problem with this system is lag, as if the AI is overtasked during movement the system may take a few miliseconds to compensate visually. This lag is easilly detectable to light sensors and can be seen with the naked eye. Usually the AI becomes overtasked when the user uses constant swift movements, and becomes even more overtasked in extreme conditions, where more of the AI's capacity and has to be redirected to temeprature regulation.

There is another disadvantage with active camouflage and that is it can only display a section of armour to display one image, so the user only appears camouflaged from certain angles (primerely from the front of the user, defined by stance, and the rear of the user). Because of this users become easilly visible from the sides, as the drawn out image only partly reflects what is on the direct opposite side of the user. Having your side to the enemy is often refered to as either being at the Death Axis, or the Drop Axis.

The majority of direct fire casualties are caused during a relocation, as to avoid detection by thermal vision (due to heat trails of rounds) the user relocates to a new fireing position, and often show their flanks to the enemy when doing so.