Is the US Military on the Cusp of a Through-Wall Radar X-Ray Vision and AI (Artificial Intelligence) ‘Activity Prediction’ Combined-Technology Urban Warfare/Combat Revolution?
In just the past month, articles have been published on two technologies that have peaked DefenseReview’s (DR) attention: x-ray-vision-type radar that allows one to see through walls, and artificial intelligence (AI) tech that allows one to predict human behavior/action minutes before it happens. These two technologies are respectively revolutionary on their own. However, combined, they’re potentially truly transformative with regard to urban warfare, also known as urban combat.
The see-through-walls radar tech is called RF-Pose, and it’s being developed at MIT. It allows the user to see what an individual is doing in terms of gross movement and body position on the other side of a wall in real time, with a current accuracy rate of 83%. The “heart” of the RF-Pose tech is a radio transmitter that’s roughly the same size as a laptop. The radar beams pass through walls, and get reflected back by human bodies, due to the high water content they contain.
“Computer algorithms analyze the reflected waves, homing in on the head, hands, feet and other key body parts to produce moving stick figures on a screen,” according to NBC News MACH writer Kate Baggaley. At the moment, the RF-Pose tech can only penetrate thin walls. Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute research associate Ginés Hidalgo says RF-Pose “could become a breakthrough” if this current wall-thickness limitation is solved.
The behavior/”activity-prediction” AI tech comes from a University of Bonn (Germany) research team. Right now, the technology can predict your actions minutes before they happen, but Dr. Jürgen Gall “believes the intelligent software will eventually be able to prophesize your actions ‘hours before they happen’”, according to Aaron Brown of Daily Mail. The activity-prediction technology relies on a rather advanced algorithm that apparently learns, recognizing information patterns.
Anyway, let’s just hope that both of these technologies only used against our enemies, and not against US. Defense Review will of course keep an eye on them.