The London-based start-up 'Invisibility Shield Co.' has developed the shield, which uses a special lens array to 'invisible' any objects or people hiding behind it.

Invisibility cloaks have been a popular feature in science fiction blockbusters for years, from Star Trek to Harry Potter. An invisibility shield that is fully functional has now been developed.

The London-based start-up 'Invisibility Shield Co.' has developed the shield, which uses a special lens array to 'invisible' any objects or people hiding behind it.

While 25 shields have been built, the team is raising money on Kickstarter to build more.
As the team explained, they were 'disappointed by the lack of progress and the continued lack of availability of actual working invisibility shields.'

According to The DailyMail, the team went through countless iterations, tested a lot of materials, and experienced a lot of failures.

But in the long run, they managed to develop a reliable, scalable, and efficient manufacturing process and created what according to them are the best invisibility shields ever made.

To keep the observer from seeing the object or person hidden behind it, the invisibility shield employs a special lens array that slants light in a left-to-right motion across the shield's face.

Due to the lenses in this array being vertically aligned, a vertically oriented strip of light reflected by the subject when passing through the back of the shield quickly becomes very diffuse when spread out horizontally, the team explained.

'In comparison, because the light reflected from the background is much brighter and wider, it is refracted significantly more when it passes through the back of the shield, both across the shield and toward the observer.' they further added

To put it another way, the background light appears to be smeared horizontally across the shield, obscuring the subject's view.

The shields were developed by experimenting with a wide range of lens shapes, angles, depths, profiles, and distances.

The final iteration incorporates parallel rows of elongated, convex lenses across a polymer sheet. 'Because the material used to fabricate the shields is UV resistant, temperature resistant, and extremely durable, it is frequently used for external signage and marine applications,' the team explained.

The shields perform best against a uniform background, such as grass, foliage, sand, or sky, according to the team. ‘Backgrounds with defined horizontal lines also work extremely well; these can be natural features such as the horizon or man-made features such as walls, railings, or painted lines,' they added. While you might believe that an invisibility shield would be prohibitively expensive, this is not the case.

An invisibility shield that is 12x8 inches in size costs £49, while a larger version that is 37x25 inches in size costs £299. More information is available on the Kickstarter page.