A remote, high-throughput temperature monitoring system for COVID-19 screening

根据现有的流行病学数据，新冠肺炎表现出高度的人口传染性，超过了SARS冠状病毒。人员的大规模跨城市和跨境流动增加了疫情传播的风险和防控难度。控制新冠肺炎的传播对各省的公共卫生当局构成了严峻的挑战。在现有的人群数据中，据报道，发病时体温异常的症状占感染者的77%。世界卫生组织(WHO)和美国疾病控制与预防中心(CDC)将发热列为诊断新冠肺炎的重要临床特征。前额测温枪和热像仪是现有的两种非接触式测温技术。然而，这两项技术的部署受到限制，要么是因为吞吐量低、反应慢(前额温度计枪)，要么是由于高成本、低精度和相对复杂的安装(红外摄像头)。在本项目中，我们提出开发一种基于人工智能(AI)计算机视觉制导红外传感技术的远程、高精度、高通量的温度监测系统，该系统可以在2-5米的距离内测量人体，具有高测量精度(+/-0.1摄氏度)和高通量能力(最多8人同时测量，在几秒内)。这一远程、高精度、高效率的温度监测系统将能够快速识别人群中有发热症状的新冠肺炎患者，实现新冠肺炎患者与健康人的快速隔离和隔离。在医院、地铁、车站、机场、学校、商场和其他人口稠密地区和交通繁忙的场所部署这项技术至关重要。这对于遏制新冠肺炎的传播，防止其在加拿大各地重新开放社区和经济活动时卷土重来非常重要。

According to existing epidemiological data, COVID-19 exhibits a high degree of population contagiousness, surpassing that of SARS coronavirus. The large scale movement of people across cities and beyond borders increases the risk of epidemic transmission and the difficulty of prevention and control. The control of the spread of COVID-19 poses a severe challenge for public health authorities across the provinces. In available population data, it is reported that the symptom of abnormal body temperature accounted for 77% of the infected individuals at the onset of the illness. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed fever an important clinical feature for the diagnosis of COVID-19. Forehead thermometer guns and thermal imaging camera-based devices are two existing non-contact temperature measurement technologies. However, the deployment of these two technologies are constrained due to either low-throughput and slow response (forehead thermometer guns) or high-cost, low-accuracy and relatively complicated installation (infrared cameras). In this project, we propose to develop a remote, high-accuracy and high-throughput temperature monitoring system based on artificial intelligence (AI) computer vision guided infrared sensing technology, which can measure human body from a distance of 2-5 meters, with a high measurement accuracy (+/-0.1 degree C), and a high-throughput capability (measure up to 8 people simultaneously and within a few seconds). This remote, high-accuracy and high-efficiency temperature monitoring system will be able to quickly identify COVID-19 patients with fever symptom in a crowd population, enabling quick isolation and quarantine of COVID-19 patients from healthy people. It is critically important to deploy this technology in places like hospitals, subways, stations, airports, schools, shopping malls and other densely populated areas and high-traffic venues. This would be very important to contain the spread of COVID-19 and prevent its resurgence when re-opening Canadian communities and economic activities across Canada.