Page 17 - Vayyar in the News
P. 17
With Walabot, Your Phone Can “See” Through Walls And
Pan For Gold
This new open-source consumer chip can help you “see” through walls or measure your breathing.
BY NOAH ROBISCHON AND ANJALI MULLANY
In the first demo, Raviv Melamed, CEO and cofounder of Vayyar and Walabot, uses the camera on his phone to see through our conference room table and detect the number of fingers he’s holding up beneath the surface. Next, there’s a video of a person walking down a hall and moving behind a barrier; the technology senses the human form even though it’s no
longer visible to our eyes. Then comes a clip of vodka being poured past a couple of sensors to determine the purity of the alcohol on a microscopic level.
This superhero-like X-ray vision comes courtesy of a new microchip-based, radio frequency sensor technology. It can be used to analyze and create 3-D images of pretty much anything behind or inside objects (the only thing it can’t “see” through is metal). Radio frequency tech has been around for decades; what makes this chip innovative is that it instantly transforms RF waves into digital output. Radio waves emitted from the chip sense how much of the signal is absorbed by an object in its path. Algorithms can then be applied to the digital data translated from the RF signals and determine all kinds of information about those objects: their density, dimensions, and using software, what those objects actually are.
Though it’s not the first technology capable of turning RF into digital, it’s certainly among the smallest and least expensive—the sensor could fit inside a mobile phone. Vayyar, which created the chip technology and is selling Walabot, is based in Tel Aviv with 36 employees, and has raised $34 million in funding. It’s part of the rapidly evolving imaging technology sector that includes the handheld ultrasound device from Butterfly Network Inc., the space-mapping camera from Matterport, and the security scanner that can detect weapons underneath clothing from the U.K.-based company Radio Physics.
