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

根据现有流行病学资料，COVID-19具有高度的人群传染性，超过了SARS冠状病毒。跨城市和跨境人员大规模流动，加大了疫情传播风险和防控难度。控制COVID-19的传播对各省的公共卫生当局构成了严峻的挑战。在现有的人群资料中，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）将发烧列为诊断COVID-19的重要临床特征。前额测温枪和基于热像仪的设备是现有的两种非接触式温度测量技术。然而，由于低通量和慢响应（前额温度计枪）或高成本，低精度和相对复杂的安装（红外摄像机），这两种技术的部署受到限制。本项目拟开发一种基于人工智能（AI）计算机视觉引导红外传感技术的远程、高精度、高通量温度监测系统，可在2-5米距离内对人体进行测量，测量精度高（+/-0.1℃），具有高通量能力（可同时测量8人，几秒内测量）。这种远程、高精度、高效率的体温监测系统将能够在人群中快速识别出有发热症状的COVID-19患者，实现与健康人群的快速隔离和检疫。在医院、地铁、车站、机场、学校、购物中心等人口密集地区和高流量场所部署这项技术至关重要。这对于在加拿大各地重新开放加拿大社区和经济活动时遏制COVID-19的传播并防止其死灰复燃非常重要。

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.