It Is Aimed at Applications Ranging From Construction and Industrial Inspection to Security

Turkish Startup's WaveSight Camera Uses Radio Waves to See Through Walls Applied Electrodynamics, a Turkish startup founded by Bilgehan Avser and backed by Y Combinator, has unveiled WaveSight, a camera system that uses radio waves to image the space behind walls and other surfaces. The company says the device can map mechanical piping, electrical cables and structural elements from across a room with millimeter-level accuracy, including a claimed precision of 1 mm. It is aimed at applications ranging from construction and industrial inspection to security and defense.

The startup describes the technology as “making the physical world machine-readable across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Because most existing structures appear opaque from the outside, pipes, cables and structural components hidden behind walls are typically revealed only during renovation or demolition — a costly problem that the company says causes billions of dollars in extra expenses and rework worldwide each year. WaveSight’s operating principle differs from that of conventional cameras.

Human eyes and traditional cameras can detect only the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, in which light reflects off surfaces to show just the exterior. WaveSight instead uses much lower-frequency radio waves, which penetrate building materials such as drywall, brick or marble and bounce back from the structures inside.”