Radio waves track people behind walls

The technology that uses radio tomographic imaging was developed by University of Utah engineers led by Assistant Professor Neal Patwari and doctoral student Joey Wilson.

"By showing the locations of people within a building during hostage situations, fires or other emergencies, radio tomography can help law enforcement and emergency responders to know where they should focus their attention," Wilson and Patwari wrote.

They said their technology can "see," locate and track moving people or objects in an area surrounded by inexpensive radio transceivers that send and receive signals. People don't need to wear radio-transmitting ID tags.

The work is to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.