Video and infra-red were yesterday: Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, the NICT, is working on a home security and monitoring system that’s entirely based on radio signals. The main advantage of the so-called “RAdio-wave Mesh for Intruder Detection System” (RAMIDS) is that there are no blind spots in the areas screened anymore.
The system consists of a transmitter and antennas that detect changes from the signal’s amplitude and phase. Depending on a threshold value set beforehand, an alarm is triggered every time an event in the room is monitored and causes a change (for example, when a window is being opened).
What’s interesting is that RAMIDS can also be used in aged care. In rest rooms, for example (where video cameras can’t be installed for obvious reasons), the system could detect unusual behavior, i.e. when people who have entered the rest room stop moving for a certain period of time.
This video, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo, shows RAMIDS in action:
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