A research team at Wuhan University has invented a low-cost invisibility cloak that helps conceal the human body from security cameras equipped with AI technology, regardless of whether it’s day or night.
The InvisDefense Cloak is visible to the naked eye but features a specially designed pattern that can evade detection by cameras during the day and emits unusual heat signals at night. The product, developed by graduate students in the computer science department at Wuhan University, won first place in an invention competition on November 27. The project is supervised by Professor Wang Zheng at Wuhan University. The paper describing the team’s invention will be published at AAAI 2023, a leading conference on artificial intelligence scheduled for February 11 next year.
The InvisDefense cloak prevents security cameras from detecting a person passing by. (Photo: Wei Hui)
“Today, many surveillance devices can detect human bodies. Cameras on the streets can detect pedestrians, and smart vehicles can recognize people, roads, and obstacles. Our InvisDefense cloak allows cameras to record you but cannot determine whether you are human or not,” Wang stated.
During the day, cameras typically detect human bodies through motion and shape recognition. With its specially designed camouflage pattern, InvisDefense can interfere with the algorithms used by machine vision, effectively blinding the camera and preventing it from recognizing the wearer as a human. At night, cameras track body movement using infrared thermal imaging. Uniquely shaped temperature control modules located on the inside of the InvisDefense cloak create an unusual temperature pattern that confuses infrared cameras.
“The most challenging part was balancing the camouflage pattern. Researchers often use bright images to impact machine vision. However, this makes it very conspicuous to the human eye, making the user even more visible,” Wei Hui, a PhD candidate responsible for the core algorithm, explained. “We used algorithms to design a pattern that is least detectable, capable of disabling computer vision.”
The research team conducted hundreds of experiments over more than three months before determining the best pattern. Another advantage of InvisDefense is its low cost. The process of printing the pattern on the surface is relatively inexpensive, requiring only four temperature control modules to obscure the view of infrared cameras.
According to Wang, the cost for a complete InvisDefense set is less than $70. “This is the first product in the industry that can evade detection by pedestrians without raising suspicion to the naked eye. Through testing on campus, the accuracy of detecting pedestrians decreased by 57%, a figure that could be higher in the future. InvisDefense can be used in combat against drones or in confrontations between humans and machines on the battlefield,” Wang added.
