Want to become invisible? Seems impossible, right? But not anymore as some students from China have made an invisible cloak and guess what? Even the security cameras cannot detect the person wearing the cloak.
Four China Graduate students from Wuhan University have developed a cloak that concealed the wearer from security cameras.
The cloak is a low-cost invention that can be used anytime let it be day or night to avoid any artificial intelligence-monitored security cameras. The cloak has been developed by a team named ‘InvisDefence’ from the University of Wuhan.
How does the cloak work?
The coat uses a technique of pattern to camouflage with the surroundings that trick to effectively blind the camera during the day. As for the night, the cloak produces heat signals that confuse the infrared camera to trick that there is no one.
Flaws of the invention:
Although it is mentioned and named an “invisible cloak”, the thing is that it does not hide the person from surrounded people or human eyes and is also ineffective at hiding cloak wearers from the security cameras monitored by humans. The design has a major flaw as it will potentially confuse most of the detection system which is used in self-driving cars but not human drivers and the risk will be higher for the cloak wearers as the driving future lies in self-driving cars.
“Nowadays, many surveillance devices can detect human bodies,” Professor Wang Zheng from Wuhan University’s school of computer science, who oversaw the invention, told the South China Morning Post.
“Cameras on the road have pedestrian detection functions and smart cars can identify pedestrians, roads, and obstacles. Our Invisdefense allows the camera to capture you, but it cannot tell if you are human.”
Achievement and back story:
In a contest sponsored by Huawei Technologies, the “invisible cloak” won the first prize with an article illustrating the technology fix to be shown at the AAAI 2023 AI conference in February in the United States.
The Ph.D. student Wei Hui from Wuhan University who created the algorithm of the cloak that generates the pattern to become invisible calculated that it cost less than 500 yuan (£59) to make the InviDefense.
“The most difficult part is the balance of the camouflage pattern. Traditionally, researchers used bright images to interfere with machine vision and it did work,” said Wei Hui.
“But it stands out to human eyes, making the user even more conspicuous. We use algorithms to design the least conspicuous patterns that can disable computer vision.”
Future ahead:
The coat can be used for different military purposes including stealth military uniforms to evade drones from detecting or many other AI-controlled units on the battlefield.
Researchers could also use the algorithm for pattern generating to better understand, improve and patch up the loopholes of Artificial intelligence and the detection technology known as computer recognition technology.
