I like Janet’s idea. This is why stealth aircraft are all flat surfaces and hard angles - reflections don’t return toward their sources.
In terms of a material, think of how a retroreflector works. Little cells of three reflective surfaces at 90 degrees to each other, so incoming light is reflected almost directly back to the source. For your case case what you might want is the funhouse version of a retroreflector, where angles are off enough that light almost never goes back toward its source. I don’t know where you could buy a material like that, though, and it seems tricky to make.
Alternately, if you could just buy some Vantablack, it would pretty much solve your problem.
Stealth aircraft use Radar Absorbent Materials, but reflection is being used as a secondary means of dispersal.
Using a ribbed material coated with Krylon 1602 flat black seems to be the way to go for maximum absorption, as that should be able to absorb the infrared and then dissipate the resulting heat better, plus the ribs will bounce off any excess light and increase further absorption.
Or, you could use your own “rogue” randomly pulse broadcast source to confuse their own sensors!
(But this might also confuse your own detection sensors)
Also, between your own transmission/reflection pickup, blast the entire environment with as-powerful-as-allowed IR lasers… If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance via reflection, of baffle them with sharp angles, then blast them with bombs…
Absorb IR radiation as heat via the soot "natural property, the copper to reabsorb the heat from the soot layer and spread it so as to diminish the heat signature of the robot.
I am shooting from the hip* here but it might be worth a shot.
Sorry, I get the mechanism. I’m just curious to see in practice how well it would perform with small, cheap bots & sensors. It sounds like it might work, and the build wouldn’t be that difficult.
Maybe not, considering what is accepted as “fashion statement” these days. And you can mount a lot of electronics on a pair of welding google, just in case the IR laser already mounted on the robot is not “surgically precise” enough…
Darn, I just realized that I might just be a villain, in the world of mad scientists… Oh well…
Thin copper sheeting is available at Metal Supermarkets (is that what this chain called?) and once the 'bot is “sheeted up”, you just rotate it over a few smoky candles until black.
Truly a cheap hack, I think.
Easy to test on the bench as well, a piece of copper clad board and a candle. Test with a TV remote?
