Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created an ultra-fast camera that can see around corners, Digital Trends reported on Wednesday. Once work on the camera is complete, the team believes it can be utilized by the military to see over walls or around corners in combat zones. The camera is able to reconstruct a hidden object using scattered laser light, which bounces off walls and surfaces that are close to the obstructed object. “We are all familiar with sound echoes, but we can also exploit echoes of light,” said Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. The camera is able to record an image every two picoseconds, allowing the location of the object to me measured with extreme precision. An algorithm can then process the collected data and use it to construct an image of the hidden object. The technique takes several minutes to produce an image, however the scientists hope to eventually get the entire process down to a mere 10 seconds. A video from the science journal Nature showcasing the technology follows below.
