UniSA working on ‘pandemic drone’ to detect coronavirus
The drone will be fitted with a specialised sensor and computer vision system that can monitor temperature, heart and respiratory rates, as well as detect people sneezing and coughing in crowds, offices, airports, cruise ships, aged care homes and other places where groups of people may work or congregate.
The UniSA team led by Defence Chair of Sensor Systems Professor Javaan Chahl, who holds a joint appointment DST, will work with Draganfly Inc, a North American drone technology company, to immediately start integrating commercial, medical and government customers.
Professor Chahl, working alongside Dr Ali Al-Naji and Asanka Perera, achieved global recognition in 2017 when they demonstrated image-processing algorithms that could extract a human’s heart rate from drone video.