MIT researchers create wireless X-ray vision by developing software that utilizes Wi-Fi signals to identify human body shapes through walls. They achieved the outstanding feat by building a device that first sends out wireless signals and then analyzes the reflections these signals emit to compose a picture of a human silhouette.
The team has named the device it has built RF-Capture. This technology was created as part of a bigger research effort they have been working on since 2013, when a more rudimentary version of the product, based on the same radio frequency usage, was able to identify shapes behind a wall.
The current product is a lot more polished however, boasting a 90 percent accuracy in identifying body shapes and being able to differentiate between as many as fifteen different people positioned behind a wall. It can even detect heart rates and breathing patterns by monitoring the person’s movements.
The way it functions is based on the wireless signals the RF-Capture emits and that reflect a human body positioned in a neighboring room. The device then interprets these reflections and creates pictures using the data it gets from the signals.
It also uses an algorithm that the team created to identify the body parts that is has generated virtual images of, then pieces the parts together creating a silhouette and monitoring how it moves in the space it is in. Besides identifying the person’s breathing and heart rates, the team also reported the technology was able to even recreate the person’s handwriting while they were writing in the air in the adjacent room.
The team that created the device plans on capitalizing on their creation and commercializing it as soon as 2016, although it has no practical application at the moment. The technology could have many purposes, many of which are already opening the way for exciting new features with medical and day-to-day life applications as well.
Apparently it could be used to monitor elderly people that live alone in case they need assistance and are unable to move or request help. It could also function as an x-ray machine that would protect the elderly as it would have no ill effects on their health.
Other possible future applications include incorporating the technology into smart homes and turning it into a permanent monitoring feature meant to identify gestures made by the inhabitant and interpret the gestures into commands that can be then sent to appliances in order to remotely control their function. Many other uses may be developed for the promising concept, as the team is already off to a great start.
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