New system uses low-power Wi-Fi signal to track moving humans — even behind walls

Welcome to the future.

A system is being developed by Dina Katabi, a professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and her graduate student Fadel Adib, could give all of us the ability to spot people in different rooms using low-cost Wi-Fi technology. “We wanted to create a device that is low-power, portable and simple enough for anyone to use, to give people the ability to see through walls and closed doors,” Katabi says.

The system, called “Wi-Vi,” is based on a concept similar to radar and sonar imaging. But in contrast to radar and sonar, it transmits a low-power Wi-Fi signal and uses its reflections to track moving humans. It can do so even if the humans are in closed rooms or hiding behind a wall.

As a Wi-Fi signal is transmitted at a wall, a portion of the signal penetrates through it, reflecting off any humans on the other side. However, only a tiny fraction of the signal makes it through to the other room, with the rest being reflected by the wall, or by other objects. “So we had to come up with a technology that could cancel out all these other reflections, and keep only those from the moving human body,” Katabi says.

Motion detector

To do this, the system uses two transmit antennas and a single receiver. The two antennas transmit almost identical signals, except that the signal from the second antenna is the inverse of the first. As a result, the two signals interfere with each other in such a way as to cancel each other out. Since any static objects that the signals hit — including the wall — create identical reflections, they too are cancelled out by this nulling effect.

web.mit.edu...

Possible uses could be for disaster recovery, personal safety, gaming.

Wi-Vi, being presented at the Sigcomm conference in Hong Kong in August, could be used to help search-and-rescue teams to find survivors trapped in rubble after an earthquake, say, or to allow police officers to identify the number and movement of criminals within a building to avoid walking into an ambush.

It could also be used as a personal safety device, Katabi says: “If you are walking at night and you have the feeling that someone is following you, then you could use it to check if there is someone behind the fence or behind a corner.”

But as many of us know, even with the good points to a device such as this, there is a downside also.
-Invasion of privacy-
Which seems to be the talk now a days.

Technology is moving and evolving extremely fast.
Hard trying to keep up with it.

Appears that much of the 'tech' stuff in the 80's movies is coming to light.
What's next???

I wonder how a thing like this would work from indoors to outdoors. That way you could secure different areas of your property. It seems like just a small step ahead of a motion sensor really, accept that this sensor actually tells you the position and orientation of the subject in real time. Id love to see it applied to rescue personel and teams but I know the reality is that it will more than likely be applied to some weapons system for seeing "insurgents" through walls and then firing rockets through said walls.

Go google 'visibuilding', it's fairly active in terms of development.

Originally posted by Latrodectus
I wonder how a thing like this would work from indoors to outdoors. That way you could secure different areas of your property. It seems like just a small step ahead of a motion sensor really, accept that this sensor actually tells you the position and orientation of the subject in real time.

The army has little gadgets you can drop in the field about half the size of a pack of cards that can localize motion and give you a rough head count or estimate of mass if it's vehicles moving in the sensor area. Sort of like this.

1. Police will watch you all day and all night.
2. Criminals and goons will watch you all day and all night.
3. Employers will watch you all day and all night.
4. Your "mother" will watch you all day and all night.

Who am I missing?

Again good technology in the hands of the wicked and evil.

Snowden : Turn off your WIFI right now!!!

reply to post by Bedlam


Sort of reminds me of the sensor grenades if you've ever played CallofDuty. They have heartbeat sensors which they use in prisons and they attach them to vehicles that are entering and exiting the premises and they are pretty damn good at detecting whether or not there is a living organism bigger than a bread box in the vehicle or not. It really is some scary technology. It reminds me of the scene from schindlers list when they Nazi doctor is in the house with the stethoscope attached to the bottome of the ceiling above to listen for the sounds of jews hiding in the building above them. Really some sinister stuff when you think about it.

reply to post by snarky412
I wonder how long it will be before this technology becomes all the rage with peeping Tom's? There's not a doubt in my mind that my freaky neighbor will have one as soon as it's available to the public. I guess I better get ready to line my walls with lead or something. Freaking technology!

Now that beats a heartbeat sensor in Rainbow 6, doesn't it? Oh goody. Slap that on a high power rifle or some monster like a .50 with remote display of closer sensors and you're God. Able to make single shot kills right through solid walls and rooms.

Call me the cynic. (shrug) It's the first application of the technology I thought of.

Originally posted by sylent6
1. Police will watch you all day and all night.
2. Criminals and goons will watch you all day and all night.
3. Employers will watch you all day and all night.
4. Your "mother" will watch you all day and all night.

Who am I missing?

Again good technology in the hands of the wicked and evil.

Don't forget, the nosy neighbors and peeping Tom's....

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by snarky412

 

I wonder how long it will be before this technology becomes all the rage with peeping Tom's? There's not a doubt in my mind that my freaky neighbor will have one as soon as it's available to the public. I guess I better get ready to line my walls with lead or something. Freaking technology!

That's what I was thinking.
In fact, I can think of one of our friends that would enjoy playing with it and if we caught him spying on us, well that wouldn't sit to well........nor would he.

Maybe we can start a business ...... 'Lead Lined Walls' home improvement.
Instead of Solar Panels, we'd do Lead Panels.

Might want to check out micro impulse radar - I can imagine HLS salivating over this.

www.llnl.gov...

Here is a video presentation on this - FYI needs quicktime format, I don't use quicktime so I had to dl and convert.
ipo.llnl.gov...

Seems in the future if you want privacy, your walls will need a thick piece of sheet metal embedded..

Lol peeping toms.

I get the image of some dudes getting all hot and bothered staring intently at their laptop screen, to the images of raster scan lines outlining a sexless form of a human body.



But I see this definitely as something scary when you consider it could/will/can/might be used to scan a house for ill intent.

No one home? Great, lets just walk around the back and break in.

It is inevitable we have to deal with this sort of thing. We can't wish it away. But how do you see around the brightness of technology as it gets brighter and brighter each day, and is blinding you?

Reminds me of the Farsight XR-20 from Perfect Dark somewhat.

But mostly from the Dark Knight when he gives his cellphone to the security guard and it maps the inside of the building, there's some pre-programming for those guys who believe in such.

Ah pop culture lol

Yep, no ones home, let the burglary commence.

At least now we will know where those pesky humans are. Once they are located we will know where to spray for them. Without this technology who knows how much we would need to spray to get them all. What a pest control technology this is. Humans visible even behind walls. What a great idea.

reply to post by winofiend

Lol peeping toms. I get the image of some dudes getting all hot and bothered staring intently at their laptop screen, to the images of raster scan lines outlining a sexless form of a human body.

Seriously, we know this guy who has already talked about it.
He's kinda on the creepy side.
So, yeah, indirectly a peeping Tom minus the visual aspect, just the imagination.
Hence why I said he better think twice about trying to spy on us.
And there are types out there just like him that would be nosy and spy just because they can.
And to be able to see the shape of 2 bodies getting it on is enough to arouse some peoples interests.
Pretty pathetic IMO.


On the bright side. I think it's great that it may be able to find victims in the rubble of Mother Nature's destruction.

--------------


[ETA: Missed your 'grumpy-faced' avatar....]

reply to post by snarky412
We also have to consider that at the rapid rate of advancement in technology that it will take very little time to go from just being able to see "shapes" to being able to see full details- unmentionables included!

Most homes and businesses have Wifi giving out signals.
Is this why?

with all the signals bouncing every ware
I bet you can use them to map out solied objects.
and tell thier density.

reply to post by snarky412


fortunately there are cheapjack solutions

Inexpensive Method To Shield a Room Against Microwave Energy

Shielding

If the microwave energy is coming from outside your home (such as from Smart meters or cell phones towers close to you), you can reduce the penetratiion of those RF energy fields into your home by enclosing your living space with an all metal enclosure. The ideal shielded room would have continuous, solid metal coverings on all four walls, the ceiling and floor (the equivalent of an all metal box), and then be grounded to earth. The more dense and thicker the metal, the better the shielding (E.g. lead or gold foil will shield better than aluminum foil, but copper is often used for RF shielding because it's a good conductor of electrons and not exceedingly expensive). The very best metal for blocking RF energy is an alloy called Mu metal, but it is extremely and prohibitively expensive to buy. The shielding ideas I will describe here will start with the least expensive (and easy to obtain) and move towards the more expensive, and more difficult to install.

Aluminized Mylar Blankets, The Least Expensive Method

MYlar Energy BlanketTo minimize microwave energy fields entering your home from Smart Meters or your abutting neighbor's wireless computer router transmitter, you can line your interior walls with aluminized Mylar sheeting called "energy blankets" typically found at sporting good stores, or camping equipment stores, or even from drug stores in some areas. The ones I bought are called "Space brand, Emergency Blanket, First-Aid Thermal Blanket" (available from www.warmers.com). I paid $3.99 each, purchased at a local Big 5 sporting goods store (but now available online for $2 each, 1/2 price). The "blanket" is made of thin Mylar plastic with an aluminum coating on one side. The one I bought measures 56 inches x 84 inches and weighs 3 oz.