In order to investigate the use of water-based infrared camouflage coatings on tarpaulin, coatings with different infrared emissivities(0.589, 0.761 and 0.953) and different colors(khaki, emerald and dark green) were developed from fillers and auxiliaries; UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer, infrared thermal imager, SEM, and TG-DTG were used to characterize the performances of infrared camouflage coatings such as visible light-near infrared stealth, infrared stealth, surface topography, heat stability etc. The research results show that the visible light-near infrared reflectance spectra of infrared camouflage tarpaulin are similar with the background, the partition effectiveness of infrared map is good, and the usage requirements are met by the performances of the surface topography, heat stability and flexibility.