Pandemic Drone (UAV)

2020: Calculation of the infected people on streets

At the end of March, 2020 the University of South Australia in cooperation with the Canadian company Draganfly provided the Pandemic Drone unmanned aerial vehicle for remote monitoring and identification of people with infectious respiratory diseases, in particular, with a coronavirus.

The drone will be equipped with the special sensor and the system of computer vision which can estimate temperature, heart rate and breath and also to identify the people sneezing and coughing in crowd, offices, the airports, cruise liners, nursing homes and other places where groups of people can work or just gather.

Drones began to identify the infected people on streets

Command of the university headed by the manager of department of sensor systems professor Javaan Chahl work with the Draganfly company which is engaged in drones to attract to the project of commercial, medical and state customers.

Professor Chal achieved world recognition in 2017 when he together with the command showed the image processing algorithms capable to estimate the heart rate of the person according to video from drones. Since then its command showed that the heart rate and frequency of breath can be measured with a high accuracy within 5-10 meters from people, using UAVs, and at distance to 50 meters using stationary cameras. They also developed algorithms which can interpret actions of the person, such as sneezing and cough.

Professor Chal claims that this technology can become an effective remedy of screening at COVID-19 pandemic. Initially the technology intended for work in zones of military operations and natural disasters and also for remote monitoring of heart rate of premature children in incubators.^[1]

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