Mm... I've Seen You Naked

Continued...
According to Thomas Gallacher, a researcher at St. Andrews University, mm-wave technology can even be used to create a sort of elaborate tape measure. “A company called Millivision is measuring people for clothes fittings by putting them in a mm-wave scanner. The scanner fires waves at the subject, the waves go straight through their clothes and bounce of the skin providing the dimensions of their body.”

On the battlefield

With their ability to “see” people through different materials and in adverse weather conditions, mm-waves have obvious uses on the battlefield. In fact, it was the US military that first started using mm-waves back in the 1940s. Now, instead of using conventional laser systems for guidance, they use mm-waves. In bad weather, laser beams just bounce off the water particles in the air. Missile guidance systems at mm-wavelengths, on the other hand, can see through fog, rain, smoke and dust.

Nearly all devices that use mm-waves are of such low power that they are about as harmful as shining a torch on you. But guess who has decided to crank up the power. The US military have plans to use mm-waves in what they call “non-lethal weapons”. They've found a way to use the waves to heat people up until they run away. And that is exactly what their massive dish mounted on a Humvee does - it fires intense mm-waves at a person and heats their skin to temperatures of up to 55˚C, causing pain comparable to getting a blast from an oven. The pain ends when the target moves out of the line of site of the instrument, and so could potentially be used to disperse crowds or on the front line to deter the enemy – so they say.

This new innovation has been met with some criticism, being dubbed a ‘death ray’. The main concern is that the effects intensify on sweaty skin and may produce harmful hotspots as a result of a radiation build up. On top of this, nobody seems to have checked that 'death rays' can't permanently damage eyes (being firstly wet and secondly fairly delicate objects). But if the technology proves to be safe and effective then the US military say it could provide a useful halfway house between verbal deterrents and shooting.

And there's more

It's not just the security industry and military that are making the most of the fact these waves can see through stuff. Medical imaging (seeing through bandages), adaptive cruise control (cars that drive themselves), aircraft landing guidance, cloud profiling and volcano mapping - all use mm-waves.

Despite their million and one applications, however, millimetre-waves' existence and potential are barely recognised. So now you know about them, don't come complaining to us when you get "barely recognised" at the airport.

The University of St. Andrews has set up a public outreach project funded by EPSRC called Vision for the Future with the aim of telling the world more about mm-waves.

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