Checking from the sky. A drone has been developed in Australia to find people with COVID-19

The device uses special sensors and computer vision to find people with infectious respiratory diseases, the developers note.

The UniSA team, headed by Professor Javan Chal, Chair of Sensory Systems, selects remote sensing and computer algorithms to find out who is infected and how widespread the disease is in a particular region.

According to the team, the new drone is able to control temperature, heart rate and respiratory rate. It can also detect sneezing and coughing. This works even in crowds, including offices, airports, cruise ships and homes for the elderly.

The technology was first introduced in 2017 by Javan Chal, Ali al-Naji and Asanko Pereh when they demonstrated the ability to measure heart rate and breathing to detect coughs and sneezes up to 10 meters (33 feet) away. Chal acknowledges that the detection rate is not perfect, but it is a practical tool for determining the presence of illness in the crowd.

A UniSA press release said the goal was to “immediately start integrating commercial, medical and government customers”, but no details on technology deployment were provided at this stage.

In addition to screening for viral infections, this technology has applications such as monitoring of playgrounds or use in disaster areas.

“We now see the need to use it immediately to help save the life of the greatest health disaster the world has been experiencing in the last 100 years”, says Javan Chal.