Defense Tech Innovation on Display at Tokyo Trade Show.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

CHIBA, Japan -- The DSEI Japan trade show--billed as the largest conference in the nation dedicated to military technology--had a 65 percent increase in the number of vendors displaying their wares over the inaugural edition in 2019. Many of them were promoting innovative new technology.

Among them was a Kyoto-based company that once specialized in sewing together ceremonial kimonos but is now making fabric that can counter electronic warfare energy.

Mitsufuji Corp. was offering products made of electromagnetic shielding fabric that could be sewn into a tent to protect electronics from either being fried by an energy pulse or probed in a cyberattack, said Mizuzuki Gamou, chief public relations expert at the company.

As a bonus, the fabric is flame resistant and waterproof, she said. "This is all you need in one fabric for protection," she added.

The thread is silver coated, which thwarts electromagnetic energy and is the brainchild of Hideyuki Mitera, senior manager and textile technology expert at the company. The special fabric was the result of 20 years of research, she said.

Mitsufuji was established in 1956 in Kyoto, which is known for its geishas, who wear colorful kimonos. As the family-owned company transitioned to its second generation of leadership, it did an about-face and entered the technology sector.

Along with the anti-EW fabric, the same material has another application as wearable sensors.

The fabric can be part of a band for a smartwatch, or it can be sewn as a strip on shirts or inside a belt strap. The fabric can keep track of a warfighter's vital signs and transmit the data to a cloud-based application, she said.

The wristwatch can also alert users to heatstroke risk by monitoring their pulse and body temperature, she said. "We have discovered a correlation between heart rate data and the rise of core body temperature with the help of a university specializing in occupational and environmental health," she said.

"All you have to do is put this on. No internet is necessary," she said. It will flash yellow when the user is entering a danger zone.

Most wearable sensors are vulnerable to body motion "noise," but the special fabric, when worn on the chest, monitors vital signs and eliminates that interference, she said.

Meanwhile, another Japanese company at the trade show was marketing an unmanned aerial float plane.

Space Entertainment Laboratory was offering its Hamadori Seaplane Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which was...