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Researchers develop wearable IoT device to tackle COVID-19

4 May 2021

A team of researchers has designed an IoT (Internet of Things) based wearable prototype device capable of geographically tracking the health status of Possibly Infected Persons (PIPs) and monitor their movement during quarantine. 

The device can monitor the vital signs directly related to COVID-19 symptoms, such as skin temperature, heartbeat rate, oxygen saturation level in the blood and also detect waves generated by cough through a ‘Deep Learning’ model and Edge Impulse platform. 

‘Design of wearable IoT device supported by Deep Learning for Smart COVID-19 Monitoring and Alerting System’ by Dr Nizar al Bassam of Middle East College is among several projects of the COVID-19 Research Programme funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

According to principal investigator Bassam, the parameters are used to detect and predict any infection possibility based on COVID-19 symptoms. The device is connected to a GPS system to locate PIPs and update the case managers about geofencing status. It is provided with the communication module which is connected to a cellular or data network. This ensures direct connection to the cloud without passing through external devices such as PIPs’ mobile.

All the data collected is sent directly to the database in the front-end of a cloud-based system. The cloud-based application is designed to display the related information, including all the PIPs’ vital signs, location and their health status with the possibility of infection based on vital signs. Furthermore, it displays the total number of cases being monitored (possibly infected), confirmed cases and closed cases as this helps authorities with an overall view of the monitored cases to immediately act depending on the cases predicted. 

“The software is compatible with Android mobile apps making it possible to alert PIPs’ friends and relatives in case abnormal physical symptoms are detected,” Bassam said.

He informed that testing of all integrated systems shows that the wearable device can measure all human vital signs successfully. It can set off an alert in case of quarantine violation of less than 100m and update cloud databases regularly within two seconds. All information related to PIPs and their health status history can be stored, managed and monitored instantly. 

 

 

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