How do you build
an infrared (IR) camera that is small enough to fit on a
mini-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) without cryogenic cooling? Call
in the nanobots.
Researchers working with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) have
developed a way to build extremely small sensors using nanorobot
fabrication. This new process, created by Harold Szu and James Buss
of ONR and implemented by Xi Ning of Michigan State University,
allows a human operator using a powerful microscope and hand-held
controller to manipulate nano-sized contact points remotely—like
using extremely small hands—to construct the pixel elements that
will form the heart of the sensor. Each pixel will be composed of
carbon nanotubes, which have nanoscale diameters and submicron
lengths. Because of the one-dimensional nature of carbon nanotubes,
they have significantly lower thermal noise than traditional
semi-conductors. A full-sized camera incorporating this technology
would be inexpensive and lightweight—about one tenth the cost,
weight, and size of a conventional digital camera.
The reason for making such a small sensor has to do with the
largest of things—protecting multibillion-dollar aircraft carriers
and their thousands of Sailors. Today, missiles have gotten smaller,
stealthier, and more difficult to detect than ever—and you don’t
need to have the budget of a superpower (or even be a power at all)
to buy or manufacture them. To improve the ability of carrier strike
groups to detect these missiles over the horizon, the U.S. Navy is
searching for ways to augment its surveillance capabilities with a
covert team of mini-UAVs equipped with passive sensors that can
cruise near the ocean surface at slow speeds for many hours.
One of the salient features distinguishing a missile plume from
flare camouflage is the unique characteristics of a plume’s IR
signature, especially in the mid-IR spectrum. The signal-to-noise
ratio of a conventional IR detector array operating in the ocean
environment, however, demands the use of cumbersome liquid nitrogen
cryogenic cooling for all current mid-IR spectrum cameras.
Unfortunately, a mini-UAV’s payload limitation does not allow such a
bulky technology on board—but a small UAV is possible with the
advent of nano-based sensors.
The proposed IR camera is being considered for other applications
as well, including the field of breast cancer detection. “This new
technology will revolutionize how sensors, cameras, and countless
other medical devices will be made by a nanorobot, which can respond
to public demands of non-contact examinations for early cancer
screening at every household,” said Father Giofranco Basti of the
Pontifical Lateran University at the Vatican City, Rome, Italy. Next
spring, the university will conduct a screening test bed of early
breast tumor treatment using this new technology in collaboration
with ONR.
