Concept diagram. The idea is to reconstruct what is inside the building based on heat signitures. (via Dr. Pietro Ferraro)
Imaging technology has grown in its capability of capturing stunning, real-life quality scenes through the recording of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, with the appropriate sensor. Of course, great images typically require ideal lighting conditions. Over the years, firefighters have begun to use infrared imaging technologies to assist their vision through the less than ideal conditions that they normally find themselves in at work. Unfortunately, the technology that is currently used for these situations is easily blinded by the intense radiation given off by flames. A team of Italian researchers believe they have developed a novel holographic imaging technique that effectively solves the issue at hand.
Firefighters today are stressed enough by the conditions they are faced with when searching through a flaming building for survivors - not being able to see well does not help. The IR lenses utilized for improved vision by firefighters does indeed help them see through the smoke, but become oversaturated at the sight of fire blinding them of what lies behind the flames. This technology relies on a bolometer-based design that takes in electromagnetic radiation through a heating element. The heating element detects changes in temperature from the absorbed light, which is then used to reconstruct an image. The way to get around this drawback would be to equip the IR sensors with a lense:
"IR cameras cannot 'see' objects or humans behind flames because of the need for a zoom lens that concentrates the rays on the sensor to form the image," says Pietro Ferraro of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Italy.
Example of the reconstruction and how it is done. (via Optics InfoBase)
The Italian scientists took a completely different approach by applying digital holography to their device. With the new imaging system, a laser light is spread throughout a room that easily penetrates through smoke and fire. The light then reflects off of objects in the room and is captured by a holographic imager. In addition to the illuminating light beam that is dispersed throughout the room, the holographic technique requires a second light beam, called the reference beam, that interferes directly with the re-captured illumination beam on the holographic imaging plate. This interference pattern creates the 3D effect found in holographic images, and in this case, creates a 3D movie-like view of the room.
In addition to applying this technology to a firefighting environment, the researchers hope it also finds a home in the biomedical industry, says Pietro Ferraro:
"Besides life-saving applications in fire and rescue, the potential to record dynamic scenes of a human body could have a variety of other biomedical uses including studying or monitoring breathing, cardiac beat detection and analysis, or measurement of body deformation due to various stresses during exercise."
Employment of the digital holography imaging technique now awaits the researchers’ efforts to actualize it in a portable or mobile platform. Once again, the development of novel technologies expresses its deep-rooted essence of life-saving and life-improving accomplishment.
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