A research collaboration between researchers at Dartmouth and the American University of Kuwait has enhanced the detection range of systems capable of discovering and mapping hidden or passive electronics, even when they are powered off and disconnected from a network.
"Imagine the smart home of the future where everything in and around the home is smart—door locks, lights, refrigerators, and so forth," says Timothy Pierson, research assistant professor of computer science. "Now imagine that I sell my smart home to you. How do you, as the new owner, discover what electronic devices are left in the house after the sale?"
Enter the autonomous spatial harmonic radar, a technology that uses radio waves to detect electronic objects.
"Think of it like a specialized radio scanner that shines a safe radio signal into a room and listens for a very particular echo that only electronic components—the metal and semiconductors inside devices—produce," says Ali Bostani, associate professor of electrical engineering at AUK.
The "autonomous spatial" descriptor indicates that the scanner can sweep across a space automatically and produce a map of where electronics are located, he says.
Bostani, a Dartmouth-AUK Faculty Fellow, spent the summer at Dartmouth, collaborating with Pierson and Pat and John Rosenwald Professor of Computer Science David Kotz '86 of the SPLICE research group to advance the technology.
This project extends an already productive collaboration between AUK and SPLICE that began with AUK Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mounib Khanafer’s faculty fellowship in 2022.
SPLICE is a multiuniversity group looking at improving security and privacy in homes that use smart devices.
Bostani and PhD student Cesar Arguello Martinez, Guarini, tapped into SPLICE's experimental know-how in harmonic radar measurement to validate core claims, such as the detectability of powered-off electronics and batteries, and to improve their system design and measurement methodology. Bostani relied on his experience with antenna and system integration to speed up the design of field-ready prototypes.
"This work is intentionally interdisciplinary," says Bostani, who hopes to establish a new harmonic radar lab at AUK. "Antenna engineering, signal processing, privacy and security, and ethics all matter," he says.
The team made progress early on: a hardware breakthrough tripled detection range from 50 to 150 centimeters in repeated trials. Their work is a step towards moving the work from concept toward practical devices and deployment scenarios.
To that end, they continue to work together on future advancements—increasing the system's range and robustness, refining signal-processing and machine-learning models to enable the radar not just to find devices but also classify them, working with legal and ethics experts to ensure responsible use, and exploring compact, user-friendly scanners and possible integration with building inspection workflows.