# So apparently flexible oleds might be used on drones **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 19, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174 "2016-12-19T20:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/1 "2016-12-19T20:01:27Z")
When I saw that in an ars article I was like wtf? Why would you possible want an oled on a drone? And then the obvious use case dropped. > **[Deep blacks, bright future—where OLED screens go from here](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/the-future-of-oled-from-full-wall-tvs-to-invisibility-cloaks/)** > > Can OLED screens move beyond TVs and smartphones? Camouflage. If you had a drone surrounded by flexible oled displays with cameras taking in the surrounding scenery, you could essentially make it relatively invisible by having the displays show what’s on the other side in view of the camera. Same goes for some potential new camo flexible oled clothes for a future soldier, or a harry potter invisibility cloak. This seems like a FAR easier task than trying to actually bend light in the visible wavelength space around to make something invisible. We could have predator like soldiers in the future. Fun times. And yes, I do want an invisibility cloak. ---
**Author:** ![quimper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7c8e57/32.png) [@quimper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quimper)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/2 "2016-12-19T20:12:14Z")
I think [Mercedes Benz did this already in 2012](https://youtu.be/vWtcz9PMFHo?t=45). Unfortunately, it only works if you’re perpendicular to the display. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/3 "2016-12-19T21:27:27Z")
Footnote please: what’s an oled ? I do try to keep up, I really do, but this is new to me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/4 "2016-12-19T21:53:00Z")
An OLED is an organic light emitting diode. They’re like ordinary LEDs, except that they can be made flexible, and might possibly be cheaper once all the R&D is done. And invisibility cloaks only work from one vantage point. For comparison, consider the camouflage used by most fish. From above, all you see is dark water, so the top half of a fish is dark to blend in. And from below, all you see is bright sky, so the bottom half of a fish is light-colored to blend in. But from the side, you’ll see a fish that’s dark on top and light on the bottom, and it doesn’t blend in with anything. It gets even worse when the scene around you isn’t neatly divided into just two uniform regions. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/5 "2016-12-19T22:28:57Z")
I’d imagine that OLEDs would be pretty handy for a much more intricate and advanced version of [Yehudi lights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehudi_lights) for camouflaging drones, even if not as an actual invisibility cloak. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/6 "2016-12-19T22:40:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > An OLED is an organic light emitting diode. They’re like ordinary LEDs, except that they can be made flexible, and might possibly be cheaper once all the R&D is done. > > And invisibility cloaks only work from one vantage point. For comparison, consider the camouflage used by most fish. From above, all you see is dark water, so the top half of a fish is dark to blend in. And from below, all you see is bright sky, so the bottom half of a fish is light-colored to blend in. But from the side, you’ll see a fish that’s dark on top and light on the bottom, and it doesn’t blend in with anything. > > It gets even worse when the scene around you isn’t neatly divided into just two uniform regions. [It seems to work pretty well in real life.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWtcz9PMFHo) Noting that it probably doesn’t look nearly as good in real life given the lack of 3D viewing in a video. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/7 "2016-12-19T23:23:45Z")
Mercedes car was just gen 1 tech and only using staid lcd displays, once we have body wraping/warping oled panels, and micro cameras that all form an omni directional visual map of all sorts of angles, we will have an even more advanced version of this [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/luZklMqLgDs/hqdefault.jpg "predator 1 invisible cloak") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luZklMqLgDs) ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/8 "2016-12-20T19:14:37Z")
I just want to line my home walls with OLED displays so that I can choose each days decor just like the desktop on my PC. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/9 "2016-12-20T19:25:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But from the side, you’ll see a fish that’s dark on top and light on the bottom, and it doesn’t blend in with anything. That’s not necessarily the case. Many animals are counter-shaded, meaning that they’re darker on top and lighter on the bottom because animal visual systems are cued to detect the lit parts and shadowed parts of animals under illumination. If you flip that, it throws that off and reduces the detectability of the animal. > **[Sunscreen Or Camouflage? Why So Many Animals Have Dark Backs And Pale Bellies](https://www.iflscience.com/sunscreen-or-camouflage-why-so-many-animals-have-dark-backs-and-pale-bellies-31112)** > > Sunscreen Or Camouflage? Why So Many Animals Have Dark Backs And Pale Bellies The Yehudi lights work that I referenced earlier was a successful attempt during WWII to reduce the detection distance of aircraft through something kind of similar. They realized that aircraft and ships are typically detected visually through contrast vs. the sky behind it. So they arranged lights along the wings and other parts of the plane to the front, and photosensors behind, and basically adjusted the illumination from the lights to match the brightness of the background. OLEDs would be really handy for camouflage, even if not as a literal invisiblity cloak. They could do adaptive countershading as the vehicle moves, they could do something similar to Yehudi lights, and they could do it all in a color spectrum appropriate to the environment. And none of that would require exactly duplicating the background. Hell, you could do something like generate an adaptive camouflage pattern on the fly by analyzing the background colors, shapes and sizes, and project it via the OLED covering… nicely countershaded as well. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/10 "2016-12-21T02:19:34Z")
Ah… I would have guessed that the obvious use case is adverts that can’t be ignored, blocked or disabled. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-flexible-oleds-might-be-used-on-drones/775174/11 "2016-12-21T09:06:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > An OLED is an organic light emitting diode. They’re like ordinary LEDs, except that they can be made flexible, and might possibly be cheaper once all the R&D is done. Thanks for the explanation, **Chronos** - very helpful.