Tuesday, January 30, 2018

W1YW Receives Patent for Cloaking Technology


It might not quite be Harry Potter's invisibility cloak … but then again, it might be. The ARRL Letter reports that the U.S. government has granted a patent for "deflective electromagnetic shielding" to fractal antenna inventor Nathan "Chip" Cohen, W1YW. Cohen is also president of Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc.

The patent, according to the Letter, included "electromagnetic cloaking/deflection of, among other things, satellites, rickets, towers, antennas, vehicles, body coverings, ships, spacecraft, and even people." Cohen is quoted as saying on a QRZ forum recently that "Ham radio experimentation can lead to some pretty cool innovations." The cloaking technology is based on the use of fractals, which Cohen introduced to the amateur community in the 1990s in Communications Quarterly, at the time a CQ publication.