I see you: MIT team develops Kinect to sense movement through walls

Researchers are taking the concept behind Microsoft's Kinect motion-sensing game accessory one step further, developing a device that can track movement – behind walls.

 

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) built the device dubbed "Kinect of the future", to pinpoint a person behind a wall accurately.

 

"We can actually bring these closer together to the size of a Kinect or possibly smaller," research Zach Kabelac, a masters student at MIT, told tech site IDG.

 

For now, the system is bulky, taking up one desk with several wires and circuits. The team showed the project earlier this month from its Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL). It used three radio antennas about a meter apart and pointed at a wall.

 

The system tracked a person walking around a room behind a wall, representing the person as a red dot. IDG said the tracking accuracy was about plus or minus 10 centimeters. 

 

Fadel Adib, a Ph.D student on the project, said the project has potential uses not only in gaming but also in localization. 

 

"What we're doing here is localization through a wall without requiring you to hold any transmitter or receiver [and] simply by using reflections off a human body. What is impressive is that our accuracy is higher than even state of the art Wi-Fi localization," he said.
 

He said future versions of the project may offer a "real-time silhouette" instead of just a red dot.

 

However, IDG said one drawback of the system is that it can track only one moving person at a time. Another is that the area around the project needs to be free of movement. For now, the team is trying to improve the system's precision.

 

Adib said they now have an initial algorithm "that can tell us if a person is just standing and breathing." 

 

He also said the new system allows 3D tracking and could may help tell if someone has fallen at home. IDG said the researchers filed a patent and were speaking with representatives from major wireless and component companies. – KDM, GMA News