Can holograms help soldiers see round corners? Technology will build 3D images of hidden objects using scattered light
Darpa is funding a $4.87 million project to let soldiers see around corners
Light scattered off surfaces will be unscrambled to create a hologram
Engineers hope to create a handheld device that can be carried by soldiers
It will reveal hidden objects from just a few feet to several miles away
By Richard Gray for MailOnline
Published: 04:20 EST, 29 April 2016 | Updated: 04:47 EST, 29 April 2016
Our eyes are wonderful organs, but even they are not able to see around corners – yet.
The US's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing technology that aims to use holograms to allow soldiers to see what lies behind a wall or around the next bend.
They have asked researchers to develop a computer program that can unscramble the light that bounces off irregular surfaces to create a holographic image of hidden objects.
Engineers are developing new technology that will build up a holographic image of objects that are hidden out of sight behind obstacles or around corners. The system works by looking for the faint photons of light that are scattered by uneven surfaces. The graphic above shows how the system might work
It is the latest attempt by researchers to use the faint photons of light that are scattered by objects that would normally be out of sight.
Using super-sensitive cameras, it is possible to detect this extremely weak reflected light – which is too diffuse for the human eye to see – and reconstruct an image of what is there.
HOW TO SEE AROUND CORNERS
Other research groups have developed camera technology that allows them to see what lies hidden out of sight.
Their system works by shining a short pulse of laser on the floor just beyond a corner and watching what happens to the light as it is scattered.
When the scattered light meets a object hidden around the corner, it is reflected.
With the aid of a super-sensitive camera able to detect this extremely faint reflected light, the researchers can create a ghostly image made of this 'echo'.
By looking at how long it takes for this light to reach the camera they can also calculate how far away the object is, while the shape of the echo reveals where it is.
But until now these images have been ghostly two dimensional 'echos' of what is hidden behind a wall or around a corner.
Darpa, however, said this approach ignores significant amounts of information that may be carried by the light.
Instead, officials behind its $4.87 million (£3.33 million) REVEAL program, want to capture three dimensional images that can be manipulated so they can be viewed from any angle.
The technology is more like something from a science fiction film.
Engineers at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, have now been awarded $2.2 million (£1.5 million) for a two year project to develop computer software capable of building these images.
Marc Christensen, dean of the Bobby B Lyle school of engineering at the Southern Methodist University, who is leading the project, said: 'This will allow us to build a 3-D representation – a hologram – of something that is out of view.
'Your eyes can't do that. It doesn't mean we can't do that.
'Light bounces off the smooth surface of a mirror at the same angle at which it hits the mirror, which is what allows the human eye to 'see' a recognizable image of the event – a reflection.
The technology will allow soldiers to see objects that are hidden behind obstacles from just a few feet away to up to several miles, according to the researchers
'But light bouncing off the irregular surface of a wall or other non–reflective surface is scattered, which the human eye cannot image into anything intelligible.
'So the question becomes whether a computer can manipulate and process the light reflecting off a wall – unscrambling it to form a recognizable image – like light reflecting off a mirror.'
The research will use models of how light travels at different speeds through different media to help build up a more detailed picture of what lies hidden through a doorway or a corner.
For example, like travels slower through water and glass than it does through air. Different wavelengths will be scattered at different rates depending on the colour.
The researchers said they hope to develop handheld devices that can be carried on the frontline by soliders, helping them to identify threats that would normally be out of sight
This could allow the researchers to build up details of what material the hidden objects are made of too.
Dr Christensen said they ultimately hoped to create handheld devices that help keep soldiers safe by allowing them to see threats which would normally be out of sight.
He said: 'For example, the speed and sophistication of signal processing has reached the point where we can accomplish really intensive computational tasks on handheld devices.
'What that means is that whatever solutions we design should be easily transportable into the battlefield.'
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