Jetson, a device that recognises people through the heart beat

Firstly the human being found a way to identify itself and to distinguish itself from the others, something unique and univocal, the fingerprints. But as the time went by we learnt that those aren’t the only things that make us unique. Our iris is unique and the shapes of our whole face are too. Everything of ourselves makes us unique and different. We are a small masterpiece created individually and there isn’t any other copy of ourselves around the world. Even the sign of our heart beat is unique and Jetson is an incredible device which is able to recognise the people right through the heart.

Identify the people from the distance

The purpose is the one to identify the people from the distance. Don’t freak us out to the idea to won’t be anymore invisible, we already now for a while that the future is a massive big brother.

By the way, sometimes there is the need to identify someone from away and the iris and the fingerprints aren’t an option. Neither the facial recognition is, even though we can identify a person through the films of a camera, it must be anyway relatively close.

There are already other technics to identify someone from remote, like the gait. But this isn’t univocal and it can be, with so much practical, disguised. The heart beat, instead, is univocal, it is the invisible sign of a person as much as the fingerprints are. Furthermore, it isn’t disguisable in any way.

The study and the realization of Jetson

It is from the Pentagon that arrives the need of a device which is able to do it: identify a person from the distance through the heart beat. So the researchers of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) worked for years to Jetson and, finally, they told us about it.

Jetson uses already existent technologies. The identification thorugh the heart beat, infact, isn’t a new. It was alrady known its univocal nature and it was already used for this purpose.

The canadian company Nymi, developed a device able to identify, through a sensor, the unique beats of a heart, and it tested it, brilliantly, on an english company.

By the way, the device of Nymi doesn’t work from remote, but only in contact with the people. Even if it was so brilliant it didn’t represent a valid alternative to the fingerprints.

The technology used isn’t a big new neither. It is just a device used by the big companies to detect from the distance vibrations like the ones of the wind turbines.

But the researchers were able to join all the knowledges into a unique device: Jetson.

How does Jetson work

In the realization of the device was just added a special connector able to point out a small target. In this way Jetson is able to work up to 200 meters of distance.

Furthermore, the researchers of the MIT worked in the creation of special algorithms which are able to detect the heart sign through laser signs.

The technic used by Jetson, called laser vibrometry, is able to detect the heart sign through the superficial movements caused, right, by the heart beat and it works even if we are wearing a jacket.

Anyway at the moment Jetson can’t be used at the 100%. Even though the researchers say that its scans are reliable at the 95% it still misses something more.

The researchers are confident that soon it will arrive to an 100% in the identification of a person. But it isn’t the only current problem of Jetson. The device, infact, spends about 30 seconds to identify the heart beat.

30 seconds during which the sobject should be steady, on the feet or sit down. But the researchers said that even this problem can be solved.

Future uses

Due to the current problems Jetson isn’t really usable now. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t an incredible invention, it just needs a bit more time.

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems of the moment, isn’t one of the already listed, but it is the lack of a database of heart signs, which is not to be exclude in the next future.

Meanwhile anyway, Jetson could be used together with the facial recognition, to reach the 100% that both still miss. Or it could be used in the medical field, to do, for example, heart scans for potential arrhythmias.

We will see the future developments of this technology which remembers us how much every human being is unique in the world.

This post is also available in: Italiano