Track: Defense and Aviation

Abstract

Military camouflage is an important part of defense technology. It is designed to confuse the enemy by visually merging the outline of military design to the surrounding environment. The purpose of this study was to apply a color similarity index for evaluating existing military camouflages designs. Camouflage Similarity Index (CSI) was utilized as a color similarity index and the value varies between 0 to 1. The best value of 0 is achieved if the selected existing military camouflage design perfectly blends with the surrounding environment. 10 existing military camouflage designs from different regions were evaluated under 14 different locations in the swamp environment. The results indicated that the CSI was an effective tool for identifying the effectiveness of existing military camouflage designs across regions. Interestingly, even the CSI values were found different among 10 selected designs, Post-hoc Tukey HSD test revealed that there was statistical difference between each design and it could be categorized into 3 different groups. This study contributed to the advancement of color similarity index to the existing military camouflage and the results would be very useful for military research organizations, ministry of defense, and textile engineer.