China Has A Surveillance Camera That Can Identify Small 2 Feet Objects From 45 Km Away

Late last year, we talked about a crazy new camera designed by a Chinese brand named Jinkun Tech.

Now, there's an even better one floating around thanks to scientists. The new camera in question is so powerful it's capable of seeing something miles away.

Scientists at the University of Science and Technology in China have developed a new shoebox-sized camera system they claim is perfect for surveillance. Why? Well, that's because it can identify objects a good 45 kilometres away.

Zheng-Ping Li, a researcher at the university, and his team recently announced their new camera. Not only is it small enough to be easily portable, it's also apparently really cheap, thanks to new laser imaging technology and artificial intelligence. Of course, those are not the sort of things you want to hear about a camera specifically built for spying on people.

Previous Lidar technologies had been able to resolve objects about 16km away by bouncing a laser off it. This new camera almost triples that capability. And not just for 2D images, it can capture 3D models of subjects too.

The scientists used a few new methods to improve the camera. The first is gating where, instead of capturing and interpreting all the photons from the laser that bounced back from the subject, a distance limit is set for what it should consider. This greatly reduces noise in the render process, and can output a much clearer image.

The hardware has also been improved, with this camera using a new 1550nm low-power infrared laser. This is capable of penetrating through fog or smog, common in China, and still won't damage human eyes.

Additionally, the researchers found that the number of data points being captured by the laser were too few to generate a detailed image. So they developed an AI algorithm in-house that pieces the incoming photons together, filling in the blanks where possible.

With all of this, the camera can render details on an object just 23 inches long, that's sitting 45 km away from it.

This sort of system could be invaluable for defense surveillance, drones, and more. It just means in a few years you may not have any privacy left to even discuss.