Drones

"Pandemic drone" could help detect infections in crowds

Drones could be enlisted to help in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
Noel McKeegan/New Atlas
Drones could be enlisted to help in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
Noel McKeegan/New Atlas

If you see a drone fly by in the future, it could be looking for evidence of COVID-19. The University of South Australia (UniSA) and Canada-based drone technology specialist Draganfly Inc have teamed up to develop a "pandemic drone" platform that uses special sensors and computer vision to find people with infectious respiratory diseases.

One of the major problems in controlling a pandemic like the COVID-19 virus is finding out who is infected and how widespread the disease is. One way to do this is to look for people showing symptoms. However, asking the population of an entire city to queue up to have their temperatures taken is hardly practical, so a UniSA team led by Defence Chair of Sensor Systems Professor Javaan Chahl is opting for remote sensing and computer algorithms.

The detection rate isn't perfect, but it is a practical tool for seeing if a disease is present in a crowd.

According to the team, the new drone is capable of monitoring someone's temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate. It can also detect sneezing and coughing. This works even in crowds, including those at offices, airports, cruise ships, and aged care homes.

The technology was originally unveiled in 2017 by Chahl, Ali Al-Naji, and Asanka Perera when they demonstrated the ability to measure heart and breathing rates, analyze human movements to detect coughing and sneezing at a distance of up to 10 m (33 ft) using drone videos and within 50 m (165 ft) from fixed cameras. Chahl says that the detection rate isn't perfect, but it is a practical tool for seeing if a disease is present in a crowd.

In a press release, UniSA says the aim is to "immediately start integrating commercial, medical and government customers," but no further details on any rollout of the technology have been provided at this stage.

In addition to screening for virus infections, the technology also has applications like monitoring baby incubators or in dealing with war zones and natural disasters.

"Now, shockingly, we see a need for its use immediately, to help save lives in the biggest health catastrophe the world has experienced in the past 100 years," says Chahl.

Source: UniSA

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3 comments
guzmanchinky
That's a little bit big brother...
Brian M
Yep just the sort of thinking and assumption that got us into this mess in the first place.
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 can be completely symptomless or mild beyond detection, and that's why the checks at airports etc., failed to stop the pandemic. Isolation is the only way to curb the spread until a vaccine is developed or herd immunity is high enough 60+%) - there should be no crowds to monitor!
ljaques
Hmm, infrared scanners to check temp of faces coming through portals would be one way to separate sick people from infecting any others. // Big Brother, is that you? Yes, I thought so. But it's for a good cause, right? Mmm hmm. But as Brian pointed out, during the early stages (while a person is highly contagious), the disease is asymptomatic. We have two ways to treat this disease. A) Allow it to run rampant over the Earth, which will purge the sickly and develop our immunities wholesale. (That's pretty cold and highly unlikely to happen.) And we have B) Stop the Earth's people from moving around =at_all= for nearly 3 weeks to let the loose bugs die off, then continue developing ways to immunize ourselves. But planes continue to move people around and ALL airports are still open, AFAIK. That's playing into Option A's hands. // Fer Chrissake, Leaders, CHOOSE ONE!