Army Develops ‘Ghost’ Imaging to Aid on Battlefield
By Christen N. McCluney
Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2009 – Physicists at the Army Research Laboratory are bringing quantum “ghost” imaging from the realm of scientific curiosity to practical reality.

Ghost imaging is a technique that allows a high-resolution camera to produce an image of an object that the camera itself cannot see. It uses two sensors: one that looks at a light source and another that looks at the object. These sensors point in different directions. For example, the camera can face the sun and the light meter can face an object.

That object might be a soldier, a tank or an airplane, Ron Meyers, a laboratory quantum physicist explained during an Oct. 28 interview on the Pentagon Channel podcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

Once this is done, a computer program compares and combines the patterns received from the object and the light. This creates a "ghost image," a black-and-white or color picture of the object being photographed. The earliest ghost images were silhouettes, but current ones depict the objects more realistically.

Meyers and his team produced the first ghost image of an opaque object in his quantum laboratory at the Army research facility.

“I think, or I would hope, in a few years that we have a soldier using a quantum ghost imaging imager to look through battlefield smoke and identifying friend or foe,” Meyers said.

Using virtually any light source –– from a fluorescent bulb, lasers, or even the sun –– quantum ghost imaging gives a clearer picture of objects by eliminating conditions such as clouds, fog and smoke beyond the ability of conventional imaging.

Meyers said there are other applications for ghost imaging in the military. Ghost-imaging sensors may allow helicopters or unmanned aerial vehicles to capture images that measure damage after a bomb is dropped. In the medical field, the imaging could improve X-rays to focus in on body parts. It also could be also used in search and rescue efforts.

Meyers, who recently won an Army Research and Development Achievement Award for his work in quantum physics and imaging, said receiving this award “shows that the efforts made in this area are being looked at seriously and are being considered for future applications.”

“What we try to do is come up with innovative solutions that will support the warfighter,” he said. “And when we can, we also spin off our technology for domestic uses.”

One of the biggest challenges Meyers faces is getting good measurements. “When you do a new science, you really need to perform your measurements with high quality so the experiments can be repeated by others,” he said. “At the Army Research Laboratory, we've been very lucky that we've been able to be funded to get very high-quality instruments.”

Meyers added that he finds his career in the Army rewarding. “I think it's really the best place to work for a scientist. You're given responsibility at a young age, and you're able to go as far as your thoughts and your abilities can take you.”

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Anyone get how this works?

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Anyone get how this works?

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I dont know how it works but it makes my head go like this trying to understand it. Interesting though.

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From what I can tell. Photons create an interference field that impacts other photons traveling near them.

The camera looks at the interference pattern of the photons and infers the shapes of objects in the actual "field of view."



It probably helps to think of the "interference pattern" as just another wavelength of light... like IR or UV.

Because it really isn't frequency dependent... any light will do. Which makes it an improvement (in theory anyway).

 

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So, uhh...how does it work?

 

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Yeah. One of those posts that you hit the submit button on and then think "Well, that didn't help at all."

 

I would guess that it uses some form of quantum entanglement. This is when two particles like photons are "entangled" in the space-time continuum and somehow manage to communicate their state instantly (look up "Shroedinger's Cat" for a wild explaination). When one of the photons hits an object, its state is altered and information about it can be inferred by the other "entangled" photon even at a large distance.

Imagine two entangled photons coming from the Sun. One goes to your camera and the other goes behind an object. The one that goes behind the object strikes another object, like a soldier. Instantly, the entangled photon that hits your camera can have its state sampled (polarity, wavelenght, etc) and we can infer what the state of the other photon is. Add up enough photons this way and you can build a picture of the soldier behind the object.

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It doesn't sound like a quantum entanglement related idea to me, but I'm going to look into it more.  Schroedinger's Cat, however, isn't the quantum entanglement "thought experiment", you're thinking of the EPR paradox, I think

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Anyone get how this works?

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Found this blog which made sense to me (more or less anyway).  link

Still crazy as hell and makes my brain go all

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It doesn't sound like a quantum entanglement related idea to me, but I'm going to look into it more.  Schroedinger's Cat, however, isn't the quantum entanglement "thought experiment", you're thinking of the EPR paradox, I think

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The computer program figures out which photons from the source and which photons from the target should reach the photoplane with the same quantum relation.  All the remaining photons from the target are essentially filtered out, leaving those that describe the target.

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Found this blog which made sense to me (more or less anyway).  link

Still crazy as hell and makes my brain go all

You are correct. The EPR paradox is the more precise example, but Shroedinger's Cat is a simpler thought experiment illustrating how the act of  measurement decides the state of what you are measuring.

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Thanks for that.  It's friggin amazing.  I love learning about new developments.   It's great to know that new and remarkable things are still being invented.  

Now all we need is controllable fusion reactors, and anti-gravity.