Lease Advisors By Marlene Estrada
Remember growing up and wanting X-ray vision like Superman? At one point that seemed impossible, but thanks to MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (Csail) X-ray vision may have just become a possibility to make your childhood dreams come true. While this new invention doesn’t give your eyes the capability to see through walls, it does provide the wireless technology to do just that. RF-capture is a device that allows the wireless signals it emits to be picked up and bounced back from the human body. This means that with the help of cellular towers and wireless infrastructure providing the frequencies necessary for this new technology to work, a 3D silhouette of a person standing behind a wall is generated.
Using radio frequency, (RF) wireless electromagnetic waves, and imaging and reconstruction algorithms, the potential to revolutionize various industries from care giving to video gaming with RF-capture is huge. The system would ease the process of creating computer-generated characters, the gaming industry would be able to map out virtual environments more accurately, and it would allow firefighters and other first responders to identify the location of people trapped (or hidden) without having to put their own lives at risk. The care giving industry has the most to gain from this technology. Csail is currently working on an invention using RF-capture called the Emerald Fall Detection system. This would use the device to track the movements of an elderly person, detect and notify the caregiver of any unusual activity, and also call for emergency services in the case of falls or accidents.
For now, the system can only create a basic skeletal structure, however it can also track movements and motions a person makes and can distinguish between different people in any given area. In trials, the system was able to distinguish between 15 people with 90% accuracy, and research shows that the wireless signals it emits contain 10,000 times less radiation than those emitted by a standard mobile phone. RF-capture is yet another example of how the creation of new radio frequency and wireless signal-based technology increases the demand for wireless infrastructure. The need for cell towers continues to increase as technology becomes more and more reliant on the signals that these towers produce. Not only will cell towers and the supporting infrastructure be responsible for the signals that keep us connected through mobile devices, but now they will also produce the signals that help RF-capture save lives.
Ultimately, the hope for RF-capture is that it becomes a part of our daily lives, much as the cell phone and other wireless devices have. Dina Katabi, the director of the MIT Wireless Center, says “in the same way that cell phones and WiFi routers have become indispensable parts of today’s households, wireless technologies like this will help power the homes of the future.” So get ready to have your superhero, superpower, dreams come true. For more from Lease Advisors visit our blog.
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