Mini-plane tops Pentagon wish list

Scientists in America are working on new hi-tech weapons for the Pentagon which include tiny spy planes and stealth covering which can hide a B-52 bomber.

Efforts to produce new weapons have been stepped up as other innovations, including unmanned planes and GPS-guided bombs, take to the battlefield in Afghanistan.

The effort is to keep America’s military the most technologically-advanced in the world and to minimise casualties, building on the success of the Afghan conflict, where the only American killed by the enemy was a CIA agent.

Top of the Pentagon’s wish list is the MAVE, or micro-aerial vehicle, a bird-sized miniature plane which can carry a small bomb or a tiny camera, to allow it to spy on otherwise inaccessible locations.

The remote control vehicle has been developed at research labs in universities and is currently being tested.

Dr Ron Barrett, of Auburn University, said it could be used ‘‘down and around trees, perched on buildings and even in caves".

‘‘It can look inside things where all of our other airborne reconnaissance would look from above,’’ said the aerospace engineer.

‘‘That’s the ultimate advantage. You get US armed forces and personnel out of harm’s way.’’

Also being made is a new material built using secret nano-technology, which combines physics, chemistry and material science, which can reflect light and confuse radar.

The material, which does not yet have a name, could be wrapped around 40-year-old B-52s to turn them into stealth bombers.

Dr David Carroll, of Clemson University, said: ‘‘It would disappear, or at least it would become very, very small.

‘‘Or small enough that you couldn’t distinguish it from a bird or something of that nature.’’

As well as weapons, new medicines and clothing are being developed.

A new bio-gel from Georgia Technical Institute which could be used when troops are deployed in the future covers wounds to keep out dirt and infection, but allowed the skin to breathe.

Professor Joseph Schork, a chemical engineer who helped develop the gel, said: ‘‘We’re only trying to keep people alive until we can get them to a surgeon.’’

And the same university has also produced a ‘‘smart shirt’’, in which sensors and fibre optics are woven into the material to monitor the soldier’s heart rate and blood pressure during battle.

It can also tell if he has been wounded and then relay his location to headquarters through the global positioning system which is also built-in.

Dr Sundaresan Jayaraman said it could tell headquarters vital information without the wounded soldier needing to do anything.

‘‘Has he been hurt, how badly has he been hurt and what are the chances of going and saving him on a battlefield,’’ said the textile engineer.