While for several years, some people have been concerned regarding a potentially harmful effect of waves from the Wi-Fi on the human body, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technologya government agency Americanhave conversely shown, in a study published in the journal IEEE Access on December 15, that this technology might one day be used to detect respiratory diseases, reports New Atlas.
Wave alterations
To ensure the connection between router and devices, the Wi-Fi system emits waves. However, the latter are altered by the entities it passes through, such as the human body. As such, the analysis of Wi-Fi waves already makes it possible to count people inside a room or to identify the positions of the sleep.
During the Covid crisis, a team from the agency had the idea of testing whether it was possible to record specific alterations in Wi-Fi waves according to certain chronic respiratory problems, such asasthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “As everyone’s world was turned upside down, many of us at NIST were thinking regarding what we might do to help,” said Jason Coder, one of the team members.
AI more than 99% accurate
To test their idea, researchers installed a mannequin simulating the breathing of a human being inside an anechoic chamber, a room that absorbs waves. A router and a receiver device were also placed in the room in order to emit the waves and record possible variations on the alterations during the different phases of simulation of the respiratory diseases.
From this data, the team was finally able to create a artificial intelligence which would be able, under these conditions, to detect and classify a respiratory disease in a patient with a certainty rate of 99.54%. This first experience, which has so far not been followed up, might eventually make it possible to easily develop a large-scale automated diagnostic method.
