We have come a long way since the first camera was introduced in the year 1816. Meanwhile, we got to see some pretty interesting camera generations which worked almost in the same way fundamentally by capturing light rays from things which were in line of sight of the camera sensor and converting them into what we know as a ‘photograph’. But now it’s time to level up the game!
Have you heard of a camera which can see what’s behind a wall or an obstacle? If no, then you will now see it happening in real life. Let’s explore.
How it works?
Matthew O’Toole, David B. Lindell, Gordon Wetzstein at Stanford Computational Imaging Lab have developed a camera which can see objects which are not in direct line of sight of the camera, which basically means the objects which cannot be seen by the camera directly such as a statue hidden behind a wall.
In order to capture hidden objects they use a high speed camera coupled with a pulsating laser which shoots pulses of light on the side wall. These pulses of light contain photons which then scatter after hitting the side wall and then some of the scattered photons come back to the camera sensor after reflecting off the side wall. Also, after hitting the wall some of the photons hit the objects which are hidden. These photons are also scattered by the objects and come back to the camera sensor after reflecting from the wall. In simple terms, the camera scans the reflection of the hidden object on the side wall as well as it also captures the light reflected off the hidden objects.
It is a High-Speed Camera which can capture upto a trillion frames per second. Now to put that into perspective, let me tell you that a camera that fast can capture the movement of light itself. It’s like making a trillion frames per second video of light which is travelling at nearly 3 x 108 meters per second equivalent to travelling 1 meter at just 3.3 nanoseconds (3.3 x 10(-9)).
This camera captures the photons of scattered light coming from different directions and different instances of time to reconstruct an image of the object with the help of a reconstruction algorithm. Let’s see what it actually looks like.
Here’s another reconstruction done of various hidden objects.
Now, let’s take a look at some practical applications of this cool technology as well as some of the improvements that are needed.
Applications of such type of Camera System
This type of camera technology can be very useful in domains like self-driving cars, bio-medical imaging, space exploration, security systems etc.
As far as self driving cars are concerned, this technology can be a boon for self driving cars. Self driving cars equipped with this camera technology can sense other cars or obstacles in it’s way ahead of time by seeing around the corner at a turning point on the road. This technology can drastically reduce the amount of road accidents that take place. As a result, self driving cars can be more safe and reliable.
Another application of this technology can be in bio-medical imaging field. Doctors can see tiny hidden parts of the body with the help of this camera technology. Let’s say if this technology is coupled with 5G, then surgery can be performed remotely and more efficiently.
This technology can also be used in space exploration. If this camera technology is installed on a rover which is meant to be sent on a planet for exploration then, the rover can easily detect hidden obstacles as well as other precious materials without even directly seeing them.
Now all this looks cool, right? But there are some challenges we have to face in order to achieve all this. First of all the camera technology is very bulky, so it is not feasible to use in biomedical imaging at the current stage. Secondly, we have to ensure that the laser is safe enough for human body to deal with.
In the coming years, we hope that this technology will improve so we can get a glimpse of it’s full potential.
That’s all for now. Signing off.
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TECH THAT THRILLS 
That’s fascinating information about cameras,keep it up.