---
title: "Scientists Create Chameleon Robot That Can Blend in With Its Surroundings"
description: "Scientists developed a rudimentary active camouflage system that adjusts color in real-time and tested it on a tiny chameleon robot."
date: "2021-08-10"
modified: "2021-08-10"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/chameleon-robot-blend-surroundings"
categories:
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "active camouflage"
  - "cloaking"
  - "robot"
  - "the digest"
---

# Scientists Create Chameleon Robot That Can Blend in With Its Surroundings

![Scientists developed a rudimentary active camouflage system that adjusts color in real-time and tested it on a tiny chameleon robot.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/chameleon.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh4P68BHodo&t=3s&ab_channel=NPGPress" target="\_blank"\>Seung Hwan Ko via YouTube / Futurism  \</a\>\</em\>*

## Active Camo

A team of Korean researchers seems to have cracked the code for rudimentary "cloaking," or active camouflage tech that can automatically blend into its surroundings in real-time.

The flexible, color-mimicking technology is durable and sensitive enough to help a soft robot blend into its surroundings, much like a real-world chameleon, [according to research](<https://www.inverse.com/innovation/scientists-bring-mind-bending-james-bond-tech-to-life>) published in the journal *Nature Communications* on Tuesday. To prove that the system works, the researchers [published a video](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh4P68BHodo>) of the chameleon-like bot, complete with cute googly eyes, that changes color from red to blue to green as it waddles across different monochrome surfaces.

It's a significant step forward for camouflage research, *[Inverse ](<https://www.inverse.com/innovation/scientists-bring-mind-bending-james-bond-tech-to-life>)*[reports](<https://www.inverse.com/innovation/scientists-bring-mind-bending-james-bond-tech-to-life>), even though the tech is still in preliminary, proof-of-concept stages today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh4P68BHodo

## Changing Gears

This isn't the first attempt to develop active camouflage [by a long shot](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/super-flexible-display-real-life-active-camouflage>). But this experiment does take a different approach from other systems that often try to jam-pack as many colorful pixels as possible onto a surface — something that the researchers describe as "exceptionally challenging" from a technological standpoint in their paper.

Instead, the color-changing material — and the little chameleon-bot — is made of several stacked layers of color-changing displays, *Inverse* notes, which use nanotech sensors to detect and display the colors of the surroundings.

## Tech Tree

The camouflage is already being considered for military applications, which perhaps shouldn't come across as the biggest surprise given how long active camouflage has been a stable of militaristic science fiction media and a pipe dream for [real-world military research](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/watch-invisibility-cloak-military-use>).

"The first application will be military, \[such as\] covert intel robots \[or\] 'actively' camouflaging military uniforms," senior study author and Seoul National University Seung Hwan Ko told *Inverse*.

But down the road, Ko envisions a world where we could buy color-changing clothing that "changes its color and patterns according to your taste or environment."

**READ MORE:** [MIND-BENDING JAMES BOND TECHNOLOGY BROUGHT TO LIFE — STUDY](<https://www.inverse.com/innovation/scientists-bring-mind-bending-james-bond-tech-to-life>) \[*Inverse*\]

**More on active camouflage:** *[Super-Flexible Display Could Enable Real-Life Active Camouflage](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/super-flexible-display-real-life-active-camouflage>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)