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  • Acoustic sensor could help stop human smuggling

    by 
    Mariella Moon
    Mariella Moon
    07.12.2015

    A number of smugglers sneak living, breathing humans illegally into a country by hiding them inside trucks, train compartments or shipping containers. It's not easy to detect people behind metal, especially if they keep really, really still, but Franklin Felber from San Diego scientific consulting company Starmark believes he's found a possible solution. Felber has developed an acoustic sensor sensitive enough to detect a person's breathing from behind metal walls, after testing off-the-shelf options that didn't quite work. His $10,000 per unit system uses a hammer-like acoustic transducer, which bangs repeatedly against a thin metal plate designed to be attached to one of the container's walls.