Smart carpet for imaging of objects' footprint by photonic guided-path tomography

We report on the concept, sensing principles, hardware and software implementation, as well as the performance of a demonstrator smart carpet, suitable for integration into the everyday environment. The deformation-induced transmission losses through strategically placed optical fiber sensing elements are measured and images of the footprints of objects in the imaged scene are reconstructed by an original method suitable for the limited datasets acquired. We discuss the potential for a very compact system, easy to integrate with the living environment and the outside world.