Last week I wrote about an interesting new technology being developed in Wales to try and speed up airport security procedures.  Such innovations are not confined to Britain, with a team from the Australian National University developing a device that can screen passengers without requiring them to queue up at the airport.

The work, which was documented in a recently published paper, has already resulted in a proof-of-concept device being developed, and a provisional patent filed for.

“This device can sense the entire environment surrounding it with unprecedented precision—previously, multiple fixed sensors pointing towards different directions would be required to achieve this,” the team explain.  “These future cameras could identify hazardous devices or dangerous chemicals in people’s carry-on baggage when they walk through an airport, without needing them to queue up and go through the various procedures that are necessary now.”

Maintaining privacy

What makes the technology interesting is that it’s capable of doing all of this without being able to recognize people’s faces.  The team believe this could have a number of possible use cases, including even in next-generation electromagnetic devices, such as the sensors used in autonomous vehicles.

Many of these domains require the technology to be able to sense a variety of hazards in a variety of, often inclement, weather or environments.  The team believe their approach is the first of its kind to be able to direct electromagnetic waves in any direction to perform a range of different functions at the same time.

“Our research provides the first theoretical and experimental demonstration that dynamic and arbitrary control of electromagnetic waves is possible,” they explain.

The next step is to continue developing the technology so that it might be ready for market, and ultimately manufactured on a large scale.  Obviously to achieve that will require collaborating with an industrial partner, but even with that, the future is far from guaranteed.  It is an interesting technology however that will be worth tracking.