Chinese students invent invisibility cloak to evade camera detection: Report

Hong Kong-based newspaper reported that the coat named ‘InvisDefense’, though visible to human eyes, can blind cameras during the day time and “send out unusual heat signals at night” to escape detection from infrared cameras.

An invisibility cloak is a dream for all Potterheads and that dream may have just become a reality, since a bunch of Chinese students have invented a low-cost concept cloak that can apparently hide human bodies from security cameras, monitored by artificial intelligence, the students claim. Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the coat named ‘InvisDefense’, though visible to human eyes, can blind cameras during the day time and “send out unusual heat signals at night” to escape detection from infrared cameras.

The coat bears a specially designed camouflage pattern on its surface which helps it confuse the recognition algorithm of the devices. (South China Morning Post)

SCMP reported that the work of these graduate students has also been awarded the first prize in a contest by Huawei Technologies Co. Wuhan University professor Wang Zheng, who supervised the project said to SCMP, “the camera captures the person’s presence but will not be able to tell if it's a human”. “Nowadays, many surveillance devices can detect human bodies. Cameras on the road have pedestrian detection functions and smart cars can identify pedestrians, roads, and obstacles. Our InvisDefense allows the camera to capture you, but it cannot tell if you are human,” SCMP reported quoting Wang.

The coat bears a specially designed camouflage pattern on its surface which helps it confuse the recognition algorithm of the devices. At night, when cameras detect thermal energy or heat emission and convert it to an electrical signal, the cloak creates an unusual temperature pattern to fool it. “The most difficult part is the balance of the camouflage pattern. Traditionally, researchers used bright images to interfere with machine vision and it did work. But it stands out to human eyes, making the user even more conspicuous,” Wei Hui, a PhD student on the team, who worked on the core algorithm, said to SCMP.

The complete set of InvisDefense costs around $70 and comprises four temperature control modules in addition to its cost of printing the pattern, which the team said was cheap. The team hopes the cloak will prove its utility as “anti-drone combat or during a human-machine confrontation on the battlefield”.