Slashdot Mirror
New Radar Sees Through Walls
artemis67 writes "A small Israeli company has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters. The pictures, which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution and are produced in real time. Wow, it sounds like the potential benefits of this device are huge, saving lives of soldiers, firemen, or police; the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large."
On behalf of the Peeping Tom Society I say thanks, RadarVision!
If it's not already Slashdotted, you can download the sample video off of the RadarVision website. The display doesn't give you Superman see-everything-in-detail-through-walls kind of powers (Lois Lane: "what kind of underwear am I wearing?"), but it's still pretty cool that this kind of thing can be done without using heat signatures and whatnot.
I saw a demo of this at FPED '03, I was marginally impressed. The resolution is no where near what they lead you to believe.
Its been a while since I've done any RF, but theres some things in that article that are a little bit, odd, to say the least.
Camero developed a certain kind of ultra radio wave that can be emitted to generate a high-definition image and also invented the technology that allows the enhanced wave to pass through virtually any wall.
How exactly does one develop a "certain kind of ultra wadio wave", and how does one "allow it to pass through any wall". Perhaps they have a valid technology, but the person who translated this to layman's terms should be shot for creating a document that makes it sound like the company is selling smoke and mirrors.
Actually, the part of the article that I found most interesting was
Seeing inside a room is one thing, but realistically, the potential for invasion of privacy is much larger with the wiretap field.
No kidding. I love some of the headlines on their main page:
Filth, fraud, fascism: Exposing 'The Party of Treason' - How Democrats corrupt morals, steal elections, aid enemies
Moore's film gets rave - from Communists -Stalinist Reds love 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Maoists love it, too
Divine intervention sought in presidential race - Get FREE copy of 'We Will Pray for Election Day' blockbuster
The role of Iraq, Israel, USA in Bible prophecy - Limited time, get Michael Evans' stunning bestseller 'Beyond Iraq' FREE!
Somehow I think I'll wait for independent confirmation of this "breakthrough." Especially since I routinely see articles proclaiming that Israeli scientists have invented everything from cold fusion to FTL drives and yet they somehow always fail to materialize in commercial form.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
This article certainly lacks any technical details, but it sounds like the device may use a form of Terahertz imaging. This is the region of electromagnetic spectrum between microwave and infrared (0.1 GHz to >2 THz).
There has been a lot of recent activity involving Terahertz Imaging for medical and surveillance applications. TeraHertz Imaging
There's a group in my graduating electrical engineering class that did their undergrad design project on something similar, Design, Construction, and Testing of a Microwave Radar System for Through-Wall Surveillance. It uses 1 - 3 GHz microwave frequencies and some pretty straightforward electronics to provide signals to a computer, which does the image resolution. I was able to see a first-hand demonstration of it, and it's impressive for an undergrad project! Just in case you thought this "New radar" in the article is revolutionary or something.