To avoid public transport and the car, I decided to go to work on foot everyday but I have to pass a small, but dark (in the evening) and scaring wood.
Even if I use flashlights, I'd like to have a kind a "life scanner", like the one used by Predator vs Alien to detect alive (hot/moving) creatures.
Beside the sci fiction side of the question, I was wondering if PIR can be used while moving, so that I can mount on my backpack and control it with an arduino while I'm walking.
If it's not possible, do you have any other ideas?
What I need it's just a way to know if there are alive, enough big to be scaring, creatures in the wilderness around me (for not alive creatures we will discuss later).
Edit
Has pointed out, a good alternative can be an Infrared camera, there are some good tutorial and Howtos in the Net.
I don't need a detailed image, but just to know if and (more or less) where there are alive creatures (hot blood animals?), as an image sometime is better then 1000 words:
Edit 2
As it has been pointed out, is this feasible or it's just sci-fiction?
Thermographic cameras exists and are widely used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermographic_camera
I found a solution here http://www.embedds.com/interactive-diy-infrared-and-ultrasonic-scanner/ , but the range is really small (21 inches = 0.5 meters)
Edit 3
This is another way to create a "radar" starting from a home made thermographic camera.
http://hackaday.com/2009/07/01/poor-mans-thermographic-camera/
Best Answer
PIR sensors usually have 2-4 pixels. That, coupled with the intended optics that appear to be designed with "blind spots" (so something moving in/out of them will cause a change) wouldn't really be that helpful.
As tyblu suggests, an IR camera—the cheap ones are NIR, not LWIR (thermal)—may be more helpful, and may even be able to couple it with some FPV (first-person view) goggles for R/C aircraft to make your own hack NVGs.
That said, some FPV goggles and IR cameras can be kinda spendy, so paying just a little more for the convenience (batteries, mechanical package, etc) of some commercial NVGs (or just a scope) might be worth it.