Seeing through walls: radio-wave cameras that map hidden structures in 3D

Key points

Key takeaways from YC interview with Applied Electrodynamics founder and CEO Bilgehan Avser (October 2026):

Origin story. The idea grew out of a costly home-remodel discovery of hidden problems behind walls; Avser's background in radio and antennas led him to radio-wave imaging.

How it works. The cameras drive many antennas at very high frequency — chipsets have become cheaper and widely available — and GPU-powered real-time processing turns radio echoes into images.

Fast progress. The team started full-time only four months ago, running version three of its device and building day and night.

Depth-mapped imaging. Demos through drywall and marble slabs reveal stickers, studs, junction boxes, pipes and cables behind opaque layers; each pixel matches the physical world one-to-one plus full depth information — creating a 3D model of what hides behind a wall.

Construction use case. The product targets seeing through opaque material such as walls — surfacing what sits behind drywall, marble and stud walls (junction boxes, pipes, cables) before work begins.

Hardware advice. Avser urges founders to keep iteration speed high — constantly shipping hardware revisions, identifying bottlenecks and parallelising — rather than waiting for something perfect.

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