Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Laser system that can show what lies behind the walls

According to a research led by an Indian-origin scientist. you can now see what's behind walls using a laser system which recreates 3-D images of the hidden objects. The researchers were inspired by the erratic behavior of photons zooming around and bouncing off objects and walls inside a room and they combine this with advanced optics to enable people “see” what’s hidden around the corners or even behind the walls.

As per Otkrist Gupta, MIT graduate student who led the study, photon particles keep bouncing right off the walls and down a corridor and around a corner. The particles that hit an object are reflected back and when this happens, the data about the time they take to move around and bounce back can be used to get information about its geometry. Using advanced optics, with this concept, in the form of an ultra-fast laser and a 2-D specialized camera, the team exploited being able to capture billions of images per second to demonstrate the technology’s ability to “see” objects by analyzing the light moving around a corner or through water bottle.

There is no doubt that this technique, developed by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Harvard, Wisconsin and Rice Universities, may prove invaluable in disaster recovery situations, as well as in non-invasive biomedical imaging applications.

Imagine a house collapsing situation where we have to rescue people trapped inside, the technology can be conveniently used and save a number of lives. It is also ideal for use in fire disaster situation, in which you need to find out what’s going on inside and around corners-but don’t want to risk sending someone inside because of dangerous or hazardous conditions. You could use this technology to greatly reduce risking rescue workers’ lives.

As per Gupta, the technology is likely to take at least another five to 10 years before it becomes commercially available.

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