MIT Research: Inexpensive ‘nano-camera’ can operate at the speed of light

Device could be used in medical imaging, collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and interactive gaming

CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- A $500 “nano-camera” that can operate at the speed of light has been developed by researchers in the MIT Media Lab.

The three-dimensional camera, which was presented last week at Siggraph Asia in Hong Kong, could be used in medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy of motion tracking and gesture-recognition devices used in interactive gaming.

The camera is based on “Time of Flight” technology like that used in Microsoft’s recently launched second-generation Kinect device, in which the location of objects is calculated by how long it takes a light signal to reflect off a surface and return to the sensor. However, unlike existing devices based on this technology, the new camera is not fooled by rain, fog, or even translucent objects, says co-author Achuta Kadambi, a graduate student at MIT. 

“Using the current state of the art, such as the new Kinect, you cannot capture translucent objects in 3-D," Kadambi says. “That is because the light that bounces off the transparent object and the background smear into one pixel on the camera. Using our technique you can generate 3-D models of translucent or near-transparent objects.”

In a conventional Time of Flight camera, a light signal is fired at a scene, where it bounces off an object and returns to strike the pixel. Since the speed of light is known, it is then simple for the camera to calculate the distance the signal has travelled and therefore the depth of the object it has been reflected from. 

Unfortunately though, changing environmental conditions, semitransparent surfaces, edges, or motion all create multiple reflections that mix with the original signal and return to the camera, making it difficult to determine which is the correct measurement.

Instead, the new device uses an encoding technique commonly used in the telecommunications industry to calculate the distance a signal has travelled, says Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor of media arts and sciences and leader of the Camera Culture group within the Media Lab, who developed the method alongside Kadambi, Refael Whyte, Ayush Bhandari, and Christopher Barsi at MIT and Adrian Dorrington and Lee Streeter from the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

“We use a new method that allows us to encode information in time,” Raskar says. “So when the data comes back, we can do calculations that are very common in the telecommunications world, to estimate different distances from the single signal.”

The idea is similar to existing techniques that clear blurring in photographs, says Bhandari, a graduate student in the Media Lab. “People with shaky hands tend to take blurry photographs with their cellphones because several shifted versions of the scene smear together,” Bhandari says. “By placing some assumptions on the model — for example that much of this blurring was caused by a jittery hand — the image can be unsmeared to produce a sharper picture.” 

The new model, which the team has dubbed nanophotography, unsmears the individual optical paths.

In 2011 Raskar’s group unveiled a trillion-frame-per-second camera capable of capturing a single pulse of light as it travelled through a scene. The camera does this by probing the scene with a femtosecond impulse of light, then uses fast but expensive laboratory-grade optical equipment to take an image each time. However, this “femto-camera” costs around $500,000 to build.

In contrast, the new “nano-camera” probes the scene with a continuous-wave signal that oscillates at nanosecond periods. This allows the team to use inexpensive hardware — off-the-shelf light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can strobe at nanosecond periods, for example — meaning the camera can reach a time resolution within one order of magnitude of femtophotography while costing just $500.

“By solving the multipath problem, essentially just by changing the code, we are able to unmix the light paths and therefore visualize light moving across the scene,” Kadambi says. “So we are able to get similar results to the $500,000 camera, albeit of slightly lower quality, for just $500.”

Written by Helen Knight, MIT News Office

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 11-400, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 United States

SWARM – Earth's magnetic field to be accurately measured by three European satellites flying in formation

On Friday 22 November at 13:02 CET (12:02 GMT) the three European SWARM satellites were lifted into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia by a Rockot launch vehicle, Credit: ESA.

On Friday 22 November at 13:02 CET (12:02 GMT) the three European SWARM satellites were lifted into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia by a Rockot launch vehicle. The mission will take high accuracy measurements of Earth's magnetic field, expanding our knowledge of the processes at work in Earth's interior as well as in near-Earth space. SWARM is the fourth Earth exploration mission in the European Space Agency's 'Living Planet' programme. With a share of about 25 percent, Germany is a leading contributor to the programme. The SWARM project office, funded by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Space Administration, will coordinate German researchers and data usage to optimise the scientific return.

Teamwork: the flight constellation and high-precision instruments of three identical satellites allows for highly accurate measurements of Earth's magnetic field. They orbit the Earth in near polar orbits. Two of the satellites have an east-west separation of 1 to 1.4 degrees, and the third satellite, which completes the constellation, is about 100 kilometres above them. This formation allows for the magnetic field to be recorded simultaneously in several positions, Credit: ATG Medialab/ESA.

Earth 'under attack'

Our planet is constantly being bombarded by energetic particles from the Sun and outer space. Fortunately, Earth's magnetic field protects us from this dangerous radiation. But measurements taken over the last few decades have shown that it is weakening and – as has often happened in the past – is preparing to reverse its polarity. The three identical satellites, all equipped with highly sensitive instruments, were carried into space by a single launcher. Two of them will fly 'side-by-side' in a common orbit at an altitude of 460 kilometres, while the third one will orbit Earth at 530 kilometres. They will circle Earth in formation like a 'swarm' and map the magnetic field in three dimensions with unprecedented accuracy during their four-year mission.

Although Earth's magnetic field has been measured and researched for about 150 years, there are still gaps in our knowledge of it. The German predecessor to the SWARM mission, CHAMP, has already delivered important results and significantly extended our understanding of the magnetic field while simultaneously raising new questions. Despite the protective 'bubble', showers of particles occasionally enter the atmosphere. The consequences of these particl invasions can vary – power grids fail, computer systems produce errors and navigation networks are disrupted. It is clear that complex, elusive processes involving external influences and changes to Earth's magnetic field are still hidden from us. Recently, it has been recognised that the situation is much more complicated than suspected, because every part of the overall system is connected to everything else. Using the data acquired with SWARM, geoscientists now want to determine the exact interrelationships.

Contribution to climate and environmental research

Thanks to the advanced instruments carried by SWARM, it should be possible to investigate large-scale ocean currents. The movement of electrically conductive salt water contributes to Earth's magnetic field. However, this effect is almost five orders of magnitude smaller than the static magnetic field. SWARM will be able to make an important contribution to climate research, since the dynamics of currents and tides in the oceans significantly affect the climate.

Through continuous observations, the three identical satellites will also support European research activities involving the overall Earth system, climate and environment, and provide important reference data with regard to Earth's magnetic field, its ionosphere and thermosphere, space weather, geodesy and geosciences.

German contribution to data utilisation

The DLR Space Administration SWARM Project Office, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie; BMWi) will organise, on the German side, the user community, advise scientists and coordinate research projects. It is also developing usage concepts and carrying out public relations activities. Through its work, the project office is establishing national and international programmes for scientific interpretation of SWARM data, and is available outside the scientific community as an information and contact point for other users. Thus, it will contribute significantly to the scientific output of this ‘Explorer’ mission.

Currently, preparations are underway to validate the SWARM data, an important contribution to quality assurance. For this work, ESA has appointed an international science team under the leadership of the SWARM Project Office. In Germany, the team comprises the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam (Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum; GFZ), the Leibnitz Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik; IAP) in Kühlungsborn, Jacobs University (JUB) in Bremen and the Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy (Institut für Astronomische und Physikalische Geodäsie; IAPG) at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

Earth system research with 'Living Planet'

SWARM is the fourth mission of the ESA programme 'Living Planet', which provides targeted contributions to important issues of Earth system science using the selected satellite missions. The previous 'Earth Explorer' missions were the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), launched at the beginning of 2009, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS), launched in November 2009, and CryoSat, which launched in April 2010.

The German division of Astrium was responsible for manufacturing the satellites; other participating German companies include, among others, IABG (Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH), ZARM Technik AG, Altran and Xperion. The operating company for the Rockot launcher is Eurockot Launch Services GmbH. The rocket was launched from Plesetsk, 800 kilometres north of Moscow. The launch, separation from the launcher, orbit injection and ongoing flight operations are being monitored by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt.

Contacts
Martin Fleischmann
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Space Administration
Tel.: +49 228 447-120
Fax: +49 228 447-386
mailto:Martin.Fleischmann@dlr.de 

Bernd Vennemann
German Aerospace Center(DLR)
Tel.: +49 228 447 310
Fax: +49 228 447 747
mailto:Bernd.Vennemann@dlr.de 

Curt Meyer Memorial Prize for Dr. Dr. Sandrine Sander of the MDC: New Key Element Discovered in Pathogenesis of Burkitt’s Lymphoma

Dr. Dr. Sandrine Sander,
photograph: David Ausserhofer,
Copyright: MDC

The cancer researcher Dr. Dr. Sandrine Sander of the Max DelbrückCenter for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch has been honored with the Curt Meyer Memorial Prize for her research into the development of Burkitt’s lymphoma, a malignant, fast-growing tumor that most commonly occurs in childhood. The prize, which is endowed with 10,000 euros, was presented to the 36-year-old scientist at a symposium in Berlin on November 19, 2013.

Burkitt’s lymphoma, also called Burkitt lymphoma or BL, originates from a subtype of white blood cells, the B lymphocytes of the immune system. This tumor, which is most often seen in equatorial Africa and South America, is characterized by an aggressive clinical course including the spread of lymphoma cells to the central nervous system in many patients.

Together with the immunologist and cancer researcher Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the MDC, Dr. Sander identified the enzyme PI3K as a key element that reprograms B cells into malignant lymphoma cells. Already several years ago Professor Rajewsky and his team demonstrated the importance of PI3K for the survival of mature B cells. The enzyme activates a signaling pathway that induces cell growth and counteracts cell death (apoptosis), which serves as a safeguard mechanism to eliminate damaged cells.

For a long time deregulation of the c-MYC oncogene has been implicated in Burkitt’s lymphoma development. The oncogene induces cell division; thus, its expression is tightly controlled in normal cells. Dr. Sander and Professor Rajewsky have now discovered that PI3K enables c-MYC to transform lymphocytes into cancer cells. These lymphoma cells divide continuously and escape the programmed cell death induced by MYC deregulation. The MDC researchers developed a mouse model closely resembling human Burkitt’s lymphoma and which will be used to develop new therapeutic strategies for this disease. The report of these findings was published in the journal Cancer Cell* in August 2012.

Since 1988, the Curt Meyer Memorial Prize has been awarded annually by the Berlin Cancer Society to young scientists from Berlin for outstanding publications in the field of clinical, experimental and translational oncology. Prize recipients from the MDC and Charité in previous years were the biologist Hua Jing** and the physician scientist Dr. Julia Kase (2012), the cancer researchers and clinicians Dr. Martin Janz and Dr. Stephan Mathas (2008), Professor Clemens A. Schmitt (2006) and Professor Peter Daniel (2001).

The prize is named after Dr. Curt Meyer, a physician and health official of the Berlin Senate who was born in Herleshausen/Thuringia in 1891. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz where he as prisoner took care of fellow detainees suffering from epidemic disease. He survived the concentration camp and after the war dedicated himself to public health, including the care of cancer patients. He was the founder of several medical societies, including the Berlin State Committee against Cancer out of which the Berlin Cancer Society has evolved. Curt Meyer died in 1984 at the age of 93.

*Cancer Cell, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccr.2012.06.012

** Last name

Contact:

Barbara Bachtler

Press Department

Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch

in the Helmholtz Association

Robert-Rössle-Strasse 10; 13125 Berlin, Germany

Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96; Fax:  +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33

e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de

http://www.mdc-berlin.de/

Further information:

http://www.berliner-krebsgesellschaft.de

http://www.mdc-berlin.de/38733613/en/news/archive/2012/20120813-new_key_element_discovered_in_pathogenesis

Foundation under Public Law

Directors:

Professor Walter Rosenthal, N.N.

Member of the

Hermann von Helmholtz Association of

National Research Centres

DFD provides maps for the relief effort in the Philippines

To view the infrastructure in the Philippines as it was before the typhoon, staff at the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (Zentrum für Satellitengestützte Kriseninformation; ZKI) of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) used archive images; Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0).

Working in shifts around the clock, staff at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) have produced their first maps of the Philippine disaster areas based on satellite image data. When typhoon Haiyan reached the islands on 8 November 2013, extensively damaging large areas, Germany's disaster aid organisation (Technisches Hilfswerk; THW) activated DLR's Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (Zentrum für Satellitengestützte Kriseninformation; ZKI) via the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'. The analysed and processed images are now providing information used as the basis for THW relief efforts on the island of Cebu.

The German Remote Sensing Data Center (Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum; DFD) has produced maps from satellite images showing the extent of damage on the Philippines; Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0).

"Individual houses are almost impossible to detect in Bogo City because the destruction is so extensive that not much of anything remains," explains Hendrik Zwenzner, coordinator for this emergency mapping effort at  German Remote Sensing Data Center (Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum; DFD). On one of these maps, the colour red – which shows the locations of badly damaged infrastructure – predominates. In the night of 12 to 13 November 2013, a four-person ZKI team requested data from the optical Worldview 1 satellite. With this data, the team generated maps with useful information for the on-site THW relief teams. A complicating factor was the cloud cover over the region, which did not permit a clear satellite view of the entire area. "For our maps, we compared the new satellite data with archived data, which gave us information about the destruction of buildings, streets, bridges and other infrastructure. This enables the emergency response teams to more effectively plan their relief efforts."

The German Remote Sensing Data Center (Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum; DFD) has produced maps of the Philippine island of Cebu based on satellite images for use by emergency response teams working there. On this map, damaged buildings are indicated by red dots; Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0).

Maps for the on-site response teams

Bogo, a city of some 70,000 inhabitants on the northern tip of the island of Cebu, and the surrounding area are the target of a THW relief team that arrived in the Philippines on 14 November 2013. The equipment brought by the 17-person team includes two water treatment plants. "We want to ensure a supply of drinking water," explains Veronika Wolf, a consultant for relief efforts and projects in THW's international division. "But in order to be able to transport the equipment and the team to various operational sites, we need the advance information provided in DLR’s disaster maps." Which streets are open to transport, which regions are destroyed, and to what extent? "We are going to places where no response team has been so far." The satellite images from space and their assessment by DFD are now with the local THW team leaders, who are preparing for the arrival of aid and coordinating their assignments. "The maps are ideal for us," emphasises Wolf.

For the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters', DLR has supplied up-to-date satellite data and archive images covering an even larger part of the disaster area for distribution to and assessment by international partners. They, in turn, forward this information to various users worldwide. At present, ZKI is preparing additional detailed analyses for the affected areas.

Contact
Manuela Braun
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Corporate Communications
Editor, Human Space Flight, Space Science, 
Engineering
Tel.: +49 2203 601-3882
Fax: +49 2203 601-3249
mailto:Manuela.Braun@dlr.de 

Respiratory disorder in the ocean = German-Peruvian science team demonstrates the influence of eddies on the oxygen sustenance =

 The authors Prof. Hermann Bange, Dr. Lothar Stramma
 and Dr. Rena Czeschel discuss the eddy distribution
in the ocean of Peru; Photo: M. Müller, GEOMAR.

18. November 2013 / Kiel, Lima. More than four months from November 2012 to March 2013 Kiel ocean scientists investigated on the German research vessel METEOR the oxygen-poor upwelling regions in the tropical Pacific off Peru. First results of the project carried out in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 754 “Climate-biogeochemistry interactions in the tropical ocean” show, how eddies in the ocean influence the oxygen and nutrient distribution in the oxygen-poor regions. This study based on a joint work from scientists of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE) in Lima is published in the international scientific journal Biogeosciences.

Observations show that in large regions of the tropical oceans, the so-called oxygen minimum zones (OMZ), the oxygen content declined during the last decades. In addition the ocean emitted increasingly climate relevant trace gases to the atmosphere. Based on numerical models it was speculated, that small-scale circulation pattern - so-called eddies - influence sustainably the distribution of oxygen and nutrients in the OMZ’s. It is known that in the ocean, eddies with different rotation direction exist similar to high and low pressure cells in the atmosphere which can be observed as sea surface elevation anomalies from satellite data. In contrast to the atmosphere ocean eddies only have a horizontal diameter of 80 to 200 km and the rotation speed is distinctly lower with less than 30 cm/s. Due to the high heat capacity and density of seawater heat and property transport in eddies are considerably important for the nutrient distribution and hence the basis of life in the open ocean.

Guided by real-time satellite data of sea surface height anomalies three eddies could be identified in the region off Peru and intensely sampled during METEOR expedition M90 in November 2012. “Our observations show that eddies transport water with strong differences compared to the surrounding waters in temperature, salinity, oxygen and nutrients while moving westwards with a few centimetres per second”, explains the lead author of this study Dr. Lothar Stramma from GEOMAR. “As the eddies dissipate after some weeks to months anomalies of these properties are introduced as disturbances into the open ocean and hence are responsible for surprisingly high productivity in the normally nutrient-poor open ocean”, Stramma states. “Near the Peruvian shelf we observed in eddies enhanced chlorophyll concentrations as well as strong nutrient loss, e.g. of nitrate”, co-author Prof. Hermann Bange explains. During the cruise co-author Alberto Lorenzo from the Peruvian partner institute IMARPE measured pH-values of the water and hence the acidity of the ocean. He could show that the acidity of sea water, which has a large influence on biological processes, changes in eddies. In anticyclonic eddies (turning counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere) the vertical extend of water with low pH, hence higher acidity increased.

From earlier investigations of the SFB-754 it is known, that in the equatorial southeast Pacific the ‘breath of the ocean’ (the supply and loss of oxygen in the oxygen-poor regions) is carried out mainly by zonal ocean currents while the results of this study show that on the poleward side of the oxygen minimum zone of the southeast Pacific eddies are responsible for a considerably contribution for changes in oxygen and nutrient distribution. “Thus, the results are of particular importance as they help to improve model computations to better predict future expansions of low oxygen areas in the ocean” Dr. Stramma sums up.

Background information:

The Collaborative Research Center (SFB 754) "Climate-Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropi-cal Ocean" addresses the relatively newly recognized threat of ocean de-oxygenation, its possible impact on tropical oxygen minimum zones and implications for the global climate-biogeochemistry system. The overall goal of the SFB 754 is to improve understanding of the coupling of tropical cli-mate variability and circulation with the ocean's oxygen and nutrient balance, to quantitatively evaluate the nature of oxygen-sensitive tipping points, as well as to assess consequences for the Ocean's future.
The SFB 754 is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2008. This project in-volves scientists from the Christian-Albrechts University Kiel (CAU), GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Max-Planck-Institute Bremen.

Original publication: Stramma, L., Bange, H.W., Czeschel, R., Lorenzo, A., Frank, M.: On the role of mesoscale eddies for the biological productivity and biogeochemistry in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off Peru, Biogeosciences, 10, 7293-7306, doi: 10.5194/bg-10-7293-2013

Links: www.geomar.de GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
www.sfb754.de/ Collaborative Research Centre 754 (SFB 754) "Climate-Biogeochemistry Interac-tions in the Tropical Ocean"

Contact: Dr. Lothar Stramma, lstramma@geomar.de
Dr. Andreas Villwock (Communication & Media), Phone: +49-431 600-2802, avillwock@geomar.de

GEOMAR
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel

Wischhofstr. 1-3, Geb. 4

24148 Kiel
GERMANY