One fact that humans have is that everyone has a different heartbeat pattern. This is similar to have a different iris as well as a fingerprint. These are the things that can be used to identify a person from another. Talking about heartbeats, they are called as a cardiac signature and they can tell identical persons apart as well. Also, it can be done from a distance as well from a certain range.
Now, US Special Forces have used the distance part to create a tool which can identify people from just their heartbeats and that too from a distance. We now know that a new device has been developed on the request of Pentagon’s US Special Forces. This tool is used to identify people without even seeing their face, with just their cardiac signature which is unique. This tool has a laser which means that you can use this from a distance of 200 meters. However, a better laser can extend its range to even more distance.
Steward Remaly from Pentagon’s Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office says that “I don’t want to say you could do it from space, but longer ranges should be possible.” In this tool, contact infrared sensors are used to record someone’s pulse. This works as there is a reflection in infrared light caused due to blood flow. The tool, called Jetson, uses a technique called Laser Vibrometry which detects surface movement due to the heartbeat.
However, there is a slight drawback of this tool as with every other tool out there. This works well enough through shirts and jackets but it does not work well with thicker jackets such as winter coats. Jetson uses an off-the-shelf device that is usually used to check vibration from a distance in structures such as wind turbines. For this, a special gimbal was also added to Jetson to keep it on target. Also, Jetson currently works when a person is sitting or standing and takes 30 seconds to give the results.