Using an ultra-high-speed camera captures the obscured object

You probably know, scientists have used a speed camera equivalent to 20 billion frames per second to capture the motion of a laser for 6 nanoseconds. At the end of last year, scientists also used CUP cameras to compress images very fast to record the motion of a laser pulse. Many of you wonder what scientists do this for? Please say that it is not just for fun, but in fact, high-speed imaging techniques can be applied in a very practical way: to help capture images of obscured objects , for example, a person is hiding behind a wall.

Since late 2010, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have begun to develop laser cameras capable of capturing images of obscured objects. Normally, obscured objects will not be able to reflect light into the human eye / camera sensor, so they cannot be captured. To make this seem impossible, scientists need to have a camera that is fast enough to "capture each photon from a laser beam that flashes during each femtosecond time (10 powers - 15 seconds ) It is these rare photons that will reflect from the source to the camera sensor, which will then lead to a computer algorithm to reconstruct each pixel and finally a complete object ".

Until 2012, the team continued to publish a video describing how this unique technology works. Please briefly introduce the experimental layout in the video: a high-speed camera, a doll and a dividing wall in the middle. Meanwhile, the camera will "fire" a laser pulse right at the wall. After hitting the wall, the photons will bounce back everywhere and "creep" to the doll behind the wall. Now, some rare photons hitting the doll will reflect back by analogue back to the camera at different times. This camera will capture photons with a frequency of 2 pico seconds / time.

The experimental layout describes how to take pictures of the obscured object without using a mirror

The whole process will be repeated 60 times with laser pulses fired at different angles. Using the photon return time data, the algorithm takes on the task of calculating the distance, determining which point the photon has touched on the object and ultimately reversing the shape of the object. As you can see in the video, the computer was able to reproduce the 3-dimensional image of the doll with high detail. That is the whole working principle of the system developed by MIT. Knowing how to work, the group's next task is to improve camera sensitivity and continue to develop smarter rendering algorithms.

And so far as you know, Genevieve Gariepy of Heriot-Watt University has developed a system to record the motion of a laser beam with high accuracy. She said the system, this time, is similar to the previous way of using laser pulses, but has a higher sensitivity. Therefore, this success has helped the dream of capturing a hidden image one step further. Once the final product succeeds, it can be applied in many different situations serving people. The most typical is to help rescue workers detect victims after disasters, apply in military and eliminate blind spots on cars, .

The video was released by the MIT team, detailing how the method of capturing obscured images works.