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The tell-tale heart
Detector picks up heartbeat of hidden humans
January 29, 1997
Web posted at: 4:45 p.m. EST
An expanded Web version of segments seen on CNN
From Correspondent Dick Wilson
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- A criminal on the run can cover his tracks and stay out of sight, but more and more, his hiding place is likely to be given away by his own metabolism. Police use infrared sensors that find a suspect by his body heat -- and now there's a new kind of detector that gets to the heart of the matter.
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At Tennessee's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, officials are testing a device that can pick up the vibrations of the human heart. The detector could have prevented the only successful inmate escape from the facility, which houses some of Tennessee's toughest criminals, since it was built in 1989.
It was a daring breakout -- four prisoners literally drove out the front gate.
Aided by a prison cook, a secret compartment was built into the back of a six-wheel truck. The inmates hid behind a wooden panel painted like the truck interior.
As the truck prepared to leave the prison, guards took a quick look inside, didn't notice anything unusual and cleared it to pass.
Called the "Enclosed Space Detection System," the new heartbeat detector can "hear" the heartbeat of a person hidden inside a car or truck. It is also used to detect intruders trying to break into classified facilities.
"It's kind of like a Trojan horse operation, where you had a dedicated, small terrorist team inside a vehicle getting into a very secure facility," says Leo Labaj of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which developed the system. "This will prevent that."
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The heartbeat detector works by using seismic sensors that are placed on a vehicle at a checkpoint. The heartbeat actually moves the vehicle itself a few millionths of an inch. The sensors detect the shockwave generated by a heartbeat, however slight, and computer software screens out other signals.
Results are displayed on a computer screen in the guard house.
Tennessee's corrections officials are impressed with the system's accuracy.
"It's something that I feel if we had in place when we had the escape, we might not have had that escape," said Tennessee Correction Commissioner Donal Campbell.
Labaj said that the device was built with "off-the-shelf equipment."
"What we brought to the table was the algorithms, the number-crunching that went into the software to find the heartbeat," he said.
The first version of the new system to be offered for sale costs about $50,000 -- about the yearly pay for three Tennessee corrections officers, according to the labor department.
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on next week's Tomorrow/TodayRelated sites:
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- Avian Security System
- Riverbend Maximum Security Institution
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory press release on detection system
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