Chinese graduate students allegedly created a ‘invisible cloak’ that can conceal the human body from surveillance cameras being watched by artificial intelligence day or night (AI). According to a South China Morning Post story, their creation, the ‘InvisDefense coat,’ can be seen by people but is covered with a pattern that may mislead cameras during the day and features heat-generating components at night.
Project management was handled by Professor Wang Zheng of Wuhan University’s faculty of computer science. ‘The ability to recognise human bodies is present in many surveillance tools nowadays. Smart vehicles can recognise roads, barriers, and pedestrians, and cameras on the road have pedestrian identification capabilities. Our InvisDefense allows the camera to capture you, but it cannot tell if you are human,’ Professor Wang said, as per the report.
The surface of InvisDefense has a specially created camouflage pattern that can obstruct machine vision’s recognition algorithm, rendering the camera blind and preventing it from identifying the wearer as a human. In essence, a surveillance camera recognises human beings by their movement and contours (locating the borders of an object). The InvisDefense coat produces an unusual temperature pattern at night that throws off the camera, which usually uses infrared thermal imaging to track human bodies.
‘The balance of the camouflage pattern is the hardest element. Bright visuals have historically been utilised by researchers to obstruct machine vision, and it has been successful. But it is noticeable to human eyes, making the user much more noticeable, ‘ the SCMP story said Wei Hui, a PhD student on the team and the person in charge of the main algorithm. According to Wei, the team employed algorithms to create the least obvious patterns that can shut down computer vision. Less than 500 yuan ($70) is the price of the InvisDefense.
Wei stated in the paper that ‘InvisDefense may also be employed in anti-drone fighting or human-machine conflict on the battlefield’. On November 27, the pupils’ creation received first place in a competition for original works. As a part of the China Postgraduate Innovation and Practice Competitions, Huawei Technologies Co. sponsored the event. Additionally, their proposal will be presented at the AAAI-23 conference in February 2023 in Washington. One of the premier worldwide academic conferences in the subject of artificial intelligence, AAAI is held yearly.
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