16 June 2018

AI Detects Pose Through Walls

X-ray vision has long seemed like a far-fetched sci-fi fantasy, but over the last decade a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has continually gotten us closer to seeing through walls. Their latest project, 'RF-Pose', uses artificial intelligence (AI) to teach wireless devices to sense people's postures and movement, even from the other side of a wall. The researchers use a neural network to analyze radio signals that bounce off people's bodies, and can then create a dynamic stick figure that walks, stops, sits and moves its limbs as the person performs those actions.


The team says that the system could be used to monitor diseases like Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis (MS), providing a better understanding of disease progression and allowing doctors to adjust medications accordingly. It could also help elderly people live more independently, while providing the added security of monitoring for falls, injuries and changes in activity patterns. The team is currently working with doctors to explore multiple applications in healthcare. Besides health-care, the team says that RF-Pose could also be used for new classes of video games where players move around the house, or even in search-and-rescue missions to help locate survivors.

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