So if you think about it, wireless signals, they travel through space, they go through obstacles and walls and occlusions, and some of them, they reflect off our bodies, because our bodies are full of water, and some of these minute reflections, they come back. And if, just
if, I had a device that can just sense these minute reflections, then I would be able to feel people that I cannot see. So I started working with my students on building such a device, and I want to show you some of our early results.So here is our device, transmitting very low power wireless signal, analyzes the reflections using AI and spits out the sleep stages throughout the night. So we know, for example, when this person is dreaming. Not just that … we can even get your breathing while you are sitting like that, and without touching you. So he is sitting and reading and this is his inhales, exhales. We asked him to hold his breath, and you see the signal staying at a steady level because he exhaled. And I want to zoom in on the signal. These are the inhales, these are the exhales. And you see these blips on the signal? These are not noise. They are his heartbeats. And you can see them beat by beat.
Further reading
- Adam Conner-Simons, Rachel Gordon (2018). “Artificial intelligence senses people through walls“. MIT News.
- Jamie Ducharme (2017). “This Device May Be the Future of Health Trackers“. Boston Magazine.
- Rachel Gordon (2018). “Professor Dina Katabi wins Association for Computing Machinery Prize in Computing“. MIT News.