MIT develops camera-like fabric

This cross section shows two rings of light-sensitive semiconductor material in the fiber. The eight thicker parts are electrodes to carry signals.

(Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

And you thought it was a problem when folks went into the locker room toting cell phones with cameras.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a fabric made of a mesh of light-sensitive fibers that collectively act like a rudimentary camera. The fibers, which each can detect two frequencies of light, produced signals that when amplified and processed by a computer reproduced an image of a smiley face near the mesh.

"This is the first time that anybody has demonstrated that a single plane of fibers, or 'fabric,' can collect images just like a camera but without a lens," said Yoel Fink, an associate professor of materials science, who along with colleagues described the approach in a the journal Nano Letters.

MIT suggested that the technology, if developed further, could give a soldier a uniform that would help him see threats in all directions. Optical fiber webs, by distributing the chore across a large area, would be less susceptible to damage in one area.

The technology uses fibers less than a millimeter in diameter, stretched into thin form from a thicker cylinder. Within the fibers are two cylindrical shells of semiconductor material, each connected to the outside world with four built-in metal electrodes.

[James Anderson Merritt]

So this suggests how an "invisibility" suit might be achieved: cover the suit with pairs of pixels and camera-elements that are positioned on opposite sides of the suit from each other. The pixel displays what its corresponding camera element "sees." From whichever direction you look, you always see "through" the suit to the background that lies directly behind. It will be interesting to see what comes of this development.

[Shankland]

It's very difficult since "opposite" varies according to one's perspective looking at a person wearing the suit. Standing directly in front of a person wearing such an invisbility suit and looking at his forehead, I should see what's directly behind his head. But somebody standing to my right should see a different view to the left of the invisible person.

[ryokowerx]

Trust me, I'm sure the DoD and DARPA is looking into this with interest.

[Shankland]

The U.S. Army actually helped fund the work, so you can bet on it.

[Vegaman_Dan]

And this is why it's important to keep kids in school and excite them with the proper foundation in the basics. From those students, great advances in technology are born such as these.

[Havoc70]

Ha Ha didn't you know the government is already using this ? Along with several other "Secret" projects

[Endbringer]

I'm sure you know all about the "secret" projects the government is working on, right?

[polyomino]

Why, that's just like Dr Miranda Jones' garment in the third season episode, number 62, "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", of Star Trek!

[Thranx]

I'll take my invisibility cloak now. Thanks.

[Sam Papelbon]

1: obtain shirt that can take pictures
2: toss shirt in high school locker room
3: ??????
4: profit

[timeshare102]

Nice stuff. Privacy stuff is but a distant dreams these days. Thanks to these gadgets that let us "do" things better.

Edward
http://www.timesharerelief360.com

[luke_marsh]

Ahh so you mean we should have enough capability to home in more effectivly on far more Extraterrestrial planets over the next 2 decades.

[Drazhna]

Shades of Shroud of Turin

[istill316]

I think seeing in all directions would make me dizzy,

[aawindoze2]

Wow those dudes at MIT are just too freakin smart man!

RT
www.be-anonymous.tk

[maxwalker2]

To clarify, this is more like a scanner than a camera. Note that it "reproduced an image placed near the mesh". I don't think Physics makes it possible to capture an image of a scene at any distance from the fabric without lensing the light back to convergence. Suppose there's a bright green dot a few feet away in the locker room. The green light from it would illuminate the whole fabric mesh evenly, so the only way for the fabric to know that it's one green dot and not a blur is to know the angle from which the green light is hitting each part of the fabric. That's what a lens makes possible. This is just a scanner.

[maxwalker2]

Update: I went to read the abstract of the paper before emailing Prof. Fink about this and noticed that the fabric actually can resolve the direction of light incident on it. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nl9009606?prevSearch=%255Bauthor%253A%2BFink%255D&searchHistoryKey=
They use sub-wavelength spacing of light sensors so that they can detect the direction from diffraction-like effects. They must look at the relative phase of the same light hitting two sensors less than a wavelength apart to determine the angle. I imagine further improvements in the technology could eventually lead to better imaging.

[harvardhup]

This is a breakthrough indeed. But can they make also an optic device that may enable us to watch ourselves from all directions? In that case we can call both of these cutting edge technologies a twofold big achievement.