Almost invisible: The spinning ‘ghost drone’ that tricks the human eye

Key Points:

• Northwestern University researchers developed Phantom Twist, a drone that reduces visibility by spinning its entire body rapidly to create motion blur, making it appear as a faint, semi-transparent blur to the human eye.
• Unlike conventional quadcopters with stationary bodies and spinning propellers, Phantom Twist has one motor and propeller while the rest of the drone spins in the opposite direction up to 25 times per second, eliminating stationary parts that are easily seen.
• The drone's design was optimized using AI and computational models to arrange components so they do not overlap visually during rotation, resulting in a drone about 10 times less perceptible to human vision than typical quadcopters.
• This approach avoids complex and costly stealth technologies like radar-absorbing materials or optical invisibility cloaks by leveraging the limitations of human vision and mechanical motion blur instead.
• Although still a prototype with noise and some visible components, Phantom Twist shows promise for civilian uses such as wildlife monitoring and infrastructure inspection by minimizing disturbance caused by drone visibility.