Human Activities Could Now Be Watched Using Sound Waves Instead Of Videos
The video cameras are still a device that can woo people owing to its capability of keeping an eye on human activities for health care, surveillance, home use, and other purposes. However, there are certain privacy and environmental boundaries that come in the way of its functionality. The device is designed such that it can capture alternative sources of vibrations, acoustical waves like sounds and other forms, which very well surpass the limitations. Nothing like electromagnetic waves like the ones used in the radar, the acoustical waves could help find and also identify objects. The researchers have made use of 2D acoustic array plus convolutional neural networks to identify and analyze the human activity sounds.
The perfection in the identification is so high that it can be implemented in several applications. According to Professor Xinhua Guo at the Wuhan University of Technology, the medical alarm system is activated at the time a human falls at home for detection purpose. This can help provide faster medical care if needed with only little privacy leakage. The 2D acoustic array has 4 ultrasonic transmitters and 256 receivers that helped gather all the data to identify human activities including sitting, walking, standing, and falling. The use of 40-kilohertz signal helped outdo the contaminating noises and identify the necessary sound.
The current device showed 97.5% accuracy for time-domain data and an accuracy of 100% for frequency-domain in the tests. The researchers found the receivers to be the key behind identification accuracy of the human activity. In comparison to the vision-based systems, the acoustic systems are a better detection device owing privacy leakage issue. The smoke and faint light also hampered the vision recognition whereas in case of sound waves it is completely ineffective. The complexity of technology will only double in the future. An amendment based on the mandatory installation of video surveillance of cameras in the children nurseries and disabled and elderly care homes was signed by the League and the 5-Star Movement (M5S) against the mistreatment going on in these places.
