Camera Vision Adaptive Camouflage is a very 'real world' application of exisiting technology which shows significant growth.
The problem of camouflage is two fold, Static and Dynamic (standing still and whilst moving). Typical application with budgets to support such research is for military applications
or covert activity ( again military in nature ).
For any 'fake' image to become true camouflage to the observer you must know first their observation position / vector. And recreate an image which is a mirror of that obscured by the thing you wish to camouflage. This is technically extremely difficult as the image must be vectored to an observer whom you may not be able to detect nor determine directly. This makes a projected theory very difficult to manage in real world.
First principles is to 'hide' the person or vehicle such that it can not be seen, or that its appearance is non threatening eg Rubbish Skip, Dust bin, Post box.
Typically any object that has a symetrical appearance will 'fool' an un seen observer from any angle when projected to the surface of the vehicle / person. This is very basic.. but a platoon of metal dustbins will stick out !!
So generation 2: You take the squad of men, all operating in resonable close proxitimity to each other. Each has a 360° camera which undertakes 2 tasks. It tracks other members of the group, and transmits it's 'view' of the surroundings to that one soldier. Now if you have say 8 soldiers in a group, you can potentially have a very good approximation of the area immediately around the soldier. How best to describe the resulting image. Imagine a man stood upright. Around him an image of his immedicate 360° in the shape of a projected tube a short distance or proximity to th e man. No invert and reverse the image to the opposing side. Now over lay this tube onto the man and he becomes a good approximation of the back, fore, and rotational view of his surounding ground - and most importantly in real time .
Now in the case that there are insuffiencent views from others, then the image is incomplete and the adaptive camo will approximate a linear flow moving image based on estimate position of the soldier and his direction of movement.
Projection of the images can be via thin flex foil LCD, and I would expect this to become thinner and closer to fabric in time. The camera tech, optics and SW already exists and is 3rd gen.
The system can be scaled to a DAY and NIGHT mode, where upon the NIGHT mode operation is based on shadow, shape illusion rather than down right 360° camo.
Camera vision: or pixel tracking, linear flow can be used to track the individual soldiers in the group, and is passive. You can determine distance and speed via this AND if you link each soldier into this network, add patrols together you can general topographical real time images, and movement object / threat detection inteligence..
There are threat reactive systems in development today based on camera systems ..
Tech Stops: LCD Flex foil is not fleible enough to operate in a field condition as bend radius is insufficent ..
Hope this gets your creative juices going !