Futuristic Black Panther Tech That's Closer Than You Realized

The nation of Wakanda in the "Black Panther" movie series is one of the most technologically advanced in the world, with many of these technologies powered by the rare element vibranium. It's unlike anything else seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the film's creators working with a leading VFX company to ensure every gadget fitted seamlessly into the fictional tech ecosystem. While much of this tech might seem a long way from reality, a lot of it is actually grounded in real-world research and isn't quite as far away as many might assume.

From futuristic levitating trains that actually made their commercial debut in a British airport in the '80s, to luminescent tattoos that scientists invented in reality in 2021, many of Wakanda's greatest tech creations also exist in the real world in some form or another. Even those that don't may be brought to the market within a few years, as developers take existing cutting-edge technologies and adapt them for new uses.

The "Black Panther" series features a number of autonomous aircraft, with CIA agent Everett Ross able to remotely pilot an aircraft from Shuri's laboratory in 2018's "Black Panther." While this technology isn't commercially available in the real world yet, the National Air and Space Museum's curator Roger Connor explains that the tech isn't as far-fetched as it might initially sound. Uber's Elevate division has been pioneering self-flying electric aircraft for a few years now and recently merged with Joby Aviation, which boasts over $100 million of backing from the likes of Toyota and JetBlue (via Seeking Alpha).

The main issue with aircraft like these is battery weight, as the current crop of self-flying craft is only able to transport a few people at once. To increase that number to something commercially viable, the aircraft's batteries must become much more efficient than at present. Unfortunately, real-world scientists don't have access to any material as revolutionary as vibranium, but research is currently ongoing on both new battery materials and more efficient ways to package charge-holding parts of the battery. Even so, it seems autonomous aircraft are a fair way off from hitting the markets, but considering how far battery tech has already come in the past couple of decades, they're not out of the question.

Another aspect of T'Challa's suit that's already well on its way into the mainstream is its biosensors, which can monitor information like heart rate and various other bodily functions. Many leading smart wearables like the Apple Watch also let users check their heart rate in an instant, and can send alerts if a user's heart rate becomes irregular or dips below a specified minimum. The new Series 7 Apple Watch also offers a comprehensive suite of sleep-monitoring tools, and there's a blood oxygen saturation monitor which can help users track their overall wellness, says Apple.

Add that to the various fitness tracking sensors that are also available in fitness bands like FitBit, and you could argue it's never been easier to monitor exactly what your body's doing at any given time. The rise of office-based and other low-activity jobs has created a booming fitness and health market, so it's very likely that further advanced health-monitoring wearables will make their way to shelves in the near future.

To listen in on FBI interrogations, T'Challa used tiny listening devices in 2018's Black Panther that were almost invisible to the naked eye. Wire-tapping is nothing new, but it's been suggested that the closest piece of real-life tech to that used in Wakanda is Sennheiser's Lavalier microphones, which provide broadcast-level sound in a hard-to-see package. The Sennheiser microphones come with wireless bodypacks that can broadcast sound to a receiver up to 330 feet (100 meters) away, and can run for up to 8 hours on one charge. The biggest downside to existing broadcast microphones is that their wireless functionality requires a relatively bulky transmitter that might prove difficult to hide in situations where full stealth was needed, but this limitation could be fairly easily solved in real life.

Integrating antennas and batteries into a jacket is a plausible solution, and similar technology is already on the market in the form of Google's Jacquard touch-sensitive fabric. The tech company teamed up with Levi's in 2015 to unveil an internet-connected denim jacket that can answer calls, control music playlists, or get directions. It felt like a regular denim jacket to wear, and it was fully washable, too, provided the wearer took out the smart tag first. Combining Google's Jacquard wearable tech with Sennheiser's level of microphone quality could make a smart wearable just as useful as the listening devices in Black Panther, and it would be stealthy enough to capture those all-important interrogation conversations, too.

Perception, the VFX company responsible for creating much of Black Panther's fictional tech, says the idea behind Wakanda's vibranium sand was inspired by "how primitive civilizations might communicate ideas quickly to each other, even before spoken language, by drawing in the dirt." Shape-shifting sand that can be arranged to temporarily form structures in an instant might not seem very realistic, but in fact, the team at Perception based the idea on the findings of a study from the University of Tokyo.

The researchers in Tokyo found that styrofoam particles could be manipulated with standing waves to form structures, and could even be held still in the air and moved around at will. While the technology is only replicable in lab conditions at present, it does confirm that the levitation and manipulation of small and lightweight items are possible, even if it's only in restricted circumstances. In theory, this technology could be transferred to more consumer-oriented uses, although it's safe to say that Wakanda-level shape-shifting sand is still much more fiction than fact.

All of Wakanda's futuristic technology relies on one material to function: vibranium. It's rare, expensive, and found almost exclusively in Wakanda, allowing the country to make technological advances that other nations simply don't have the resources to create. While it's unlikely that one single element could be discovered in reality with this much revolutionary potential, many of the REEs (Rare Earth Elements) used to create present-day technology are also found in just one or two countries. Neodymium, for example, is a vital component in making industrial-grade magnets, and it's used in everything from smartphones and headphones to electric vehicle motors. China controls over 80% of the world's supply, with 15% coming from Australia and only around 5% mined from the rest of the world.

The situation is much the same for the other rare earths, with China and a handful of other countries like Vietnam and Russia holding the vast majority of the world's deposits (via Investment Monitor). While current consumer technology is a long way off Wakanda's, it's hard to imagine the level of disruption that could be caused should China choose to stop exporting its rare earths to the rest of the world. And who knows, perhaps there's still a revolutionary rare earth element out there that we haven't even discovered yet.