A crazy smart people from MIT have developed a way topassively track people within a given space. The system was unveiled at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL).

It works much like Microsoft's Kinect motion-tracking accessory. Both systems are capable of following a human target's location throughout a room without the need for the subject to hold a transmitter.

And while Kinect's system is able to track multiple targets and even read lips from across a room, MIT's device has the advantage of being able to track people on the other side of walls.



The system utilizes three radio antennas pointed at a wall and spaced about a meter apart. The wall is an interior one dividing two MIT offices where the system was developed and the system uses three antennas to triangulate the position of a single subject on the other side of the wall.

MIT Ph.D candidate, Fadel Adib, explained to IT World, "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."

At current, researchers must stand at least a meter outside of either room to prevent interference, though multiple subjects can stand in the monitored room. The team hopes to improve the system's tracking ability to handle multiple targets and display them at least as silhouettes, as current Kinects do, within the next few software iterations.

Think of all the advertising-ish things people can do with this tech when it is ready. [PC World - IT World]