Characterizing Everyday Objects using Human Touch: Thermal Dissipation as a Sensing Modality

We contribute MIDAS as a novel sensing solution for characterizing everyday objects using thermal dissipation. MIDAS takes advantage of the fact that anytime a person touches an object, it results in heat transfer. By capturing and modeling the dissipation of the transferred heat, e.g., through the decrease in the captured thermal radiation, MIDAS can characterize the object and determine its material. We validate MIDAS through extensive empirical benchmarks and demonstrate that MIDAS offers an innovative sensing modality that can recognize a wide range of materials - with up to 83% accuracy - and generalize to variations in the people interacting with objects.Peer reviewe

See No Evil: Discovering Covert Surveillance Devices using Thermal Imaging

Covert surveillance devices ranging from miniature cameras to voice recorders are increasingly affordable and accessible on the market, raising concerns about surreptitious and unauthorized observation of people. This article contributes an innovative method for discovering covert surveillance devices using thermal imaging integrated with off-the-shelf consumer devices, such as smartphones. We develop a simple yet efficient processing pipeline for identifying covert devices and demonstrate its effectiveness through extensive and systematic evaluations that consider different types of covert cameras. Our results show robustness against a wide range of factors, including distance to other electrical objects, the environment and luminosity of the space where measurements are taken, the type of camera, and partial occlusion of the hidden devices.Peer reviewe

COMPUTER-AIDED QUANTITATIVE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF DIABETIC FOOT

Diabetes is an incurable metabolic disease characterized by high blood sugar levels. The feet of people with diabetes are at the risk of a variety of pathological consequences including peripheral vascular disease, deformity, ulceration, and ultimately amputation. The key to managing the diabetic foot is prevention and early detection. Unfortunately, current hospital centered reactive diabetes care and the availability of inadequate qualitative diagnostic screening procedures causes physicians to miss the diagnosis in 61% of the patients. We have developed a computer aided diagnostic system for early detection of diabetic foot. The key idea is that diabetic foot exhibits significant neuropathic and vascular damages. When a diabetic foot is placed under cold stress, the thermal recovery will be much slower. This thermal recovery speed can be a quantitative measure for the diagnosis of diabetic foot condition. In our research, thermal recovery of the feet following cold stress is captured using an infrared camera. The captured infrared video is then filtered, segmented, and registered. The temperature recovery at each point on the foot is extracted and analyzed using a thermal regulation model, and the problematic regions are identified. In this thesis, we present our research on the following aspects of the developed computer aided diagnostic systems: subject measurement protocols, a trustful numerical model of the camera noise and noise parameter estimations, infrared video segmentation, new models of thermal regulations, thermal patterns classifications, and our preliminary findings based on small scale clinical study of about 40 subjects, which demonstrated the potential the new diagnostic system

Does the technique employed for skin temperature assessment alter outcomes?:a systematic review

Free to read Skin temperature is an important physiological measure that can reflect the presence of illness and injury as well as provide insight into the localised interactions between the body and the environment. The aim of this systematic review was to analyse the agreement between conductive and infrared means of assessing skin temperature which are commonly employed in in clinical, occupational, sports medicine, public health and research settings. Full-text eligibility was determined independently by two reviewers. Studies meeting the following criteria were included in the review: 1) the literature was written in English, 2) participants were human (in vivo), 3) skin surface temperature was assessed at the same site, 4) with at least two commercially available devices employed—one conductive and one infrared—and 5) had skin temperature data reported in the study. A computerised search of four electronic databases, using a combination of 21 keywords, and citation tracking was performed in January 2015. A total of 8,602 were returned. Methodology quality was assessed by 2 authors independently, using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. A total of 16 articles (n = 245) met the inclusion criteria. Devices are classified to be in agreement if they met the clinically meaningful recommendations of mean differences within ±0.5 °C and limits of agreement of ±1.0 °C. Twelve of the included studies found mean differences greater than ±0.5 °C between conductive and infrared devices. In the presence of external stimulus (e.g. exercise and/or heat) five studies foundexacerbated measurement differences between conductive and infrared devices. This is the first review that has attempted to investigate presence of any systemic bias between infrared and conductive measures by collectively evaluating the current evidence base. There was also a consistently high risk of bias across the studies, in terms of sample size, random sequence generation, allocation concealment, blinding and incomplete outcome data. This systematic review questions the suitability of using infrared cameras in stable, resting, laboratory conditions. Furthermore, both infrared cameras and thermometers in the presence of sweat and environmental heat demonstrate poor agreement when compared to conductive devices. These findings have implications for clinical, occupational, public health, sports science and research fields

A review of infrared thermography applications for ice detection and mitigation

Ice accretion on various onshore and offshore infrastructures imparts hazardous effects sometimes beyond repair, which may be life-threatening. Therefore, it has become necessary to look for ways to detect and mitigate ice. Some ice mitigation techniques have been tested or in use in aviation and railway sectors, however, their applicability to other sectors/systems is still in the research phase. To make such systems autonomous, ice protection systems need to be accompanied by reliable ice detection systems, which include electronic, mechatronics, mechanical, and optical techniques. Comparing the benefits and limitations of all available methodologies, Infrared Thermography (IRT) appears to be one of the useful, non-destructive, and emerging techniques as it offers wide area monitoring instead of just point-based ice monitoring. This paper reviews the applications of IRT in the field of icing on various subject areas to provide valuable insights into the existing development of an intelligent and autonomous ice mitigation system for general applications

Computer aided detection of defects in FRP bridge decks using infrared thermography

The objective of this research is to develop a turn-key system that is able to interface with the FLIR ThermaCAM S60 infrared camera and automatically capture and analyze defects in infrared images of FRP bridge decks. Infrared thermography is one of the nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques that are being used to locate defects (debonds and delaminations) in bridge components. It is a rapid data collection and interpretation technique having high sensitivity and reliability. Analysis of infrared images by human interpretation is dependent on the users knowledge and hence introduces ambiguity in the defect detection process.;This thesis investigates the use of an automated defect detection system to locate defects in infrared images of FRP bridge decks to eliminate/reduce human intervention. Air-filled and water-filled debonds were inserted between the wearing surface and the underlying FRP deck. Also, simulated subsurface delaminations (of various sizes and thickness) were created at the flange-to-flange junction between two FRP deck modules. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)