The New York Police Department (NYPD) has taken up a research project to detect concealed guns carried by individuals from as far as 82 feet away.

Raymond Kelly, New York’s Police Commissioner, said that the department was working in conjunction with the Department of Defense to develop the technology. The scanner would rely on a type of reverse infrared mapping that reads the energy people emit and pinpoint where that flow is blocked by an object like a gun.

“If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation — for example, a weapon — the device will highlight that object,” Kelly said. “This technology has shown a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search.”