Massachusetts Institute of
Technology researchers have developed a device that can see through walls and
pinpoint a person with incredible accuracy. They call it the ‘Kinect of the
future’, after Microsoft's Xbox 360 motion sensing camera. The project from
MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL) used three radio
antennas spaced about a meter apart and pointed at a wall. A desk cluttered
with wires and circuits generated and interpreted the radio waves. On the other
side of the wall a single person walked around the room and the system
represented that person as a red dot on a computer screen. The system tracked
the movements with an accuracy of plus or minus 10 centimeters, which is about
the width of an adult hand.
In the room where users walked
around there was white tape on the floor in a circular design. The tape on the
floor was also in the virtual representation of the room on the computer
screen. It wasn't being used an aid to the technology, rather it showed
onlookers just how accurate the system was. As testers walked on the floor
design their actions were mirrored on the computer screen. One of the drawbacks
of the system is that it can only track one moving person at a time and the
area around the project needs to be completely free of movement. That meant
that when the group wanted to test the system they would need to leave the room
with the transmitters as well as the surrounding area; only the person being
tracked could be nearby.
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