DRDO during Covid
AI Based Intelligent Covid-19 detector Technology for Medical
Assistance (ATMAN)
An easy to use, cost-effective, scalable contactless attendance system has been developed as alternate to Finger-print based attendance.
An unmanned aerial vehicle (DRONE) is configured for surveillance of Covid-19 hotspots and containment zones to ensure strict compliance of lockdown guidelines in densely populated areas, where streets are too narrow for motorised patrolling and police personnel are susceptible to infection in case of manual patrolling. The system has been developed by TBRL, Chandigarh in collaboration with industry partner.
SAMPARC Software
It has been learnt from official sources that DRDO is offering states an IT driven approach to enable tracking of people under quarantine or isolation.
The solution called SAMPARC (Smart Automated Management of
Patients and Risks for Covid-19) is a software that includes an App that would
be installed on the smartphones of the patients and a server side application
that would be used by the state authorities to track the patients. The
highlights of the solution are that it is meant only for tracking and not for
contact tracing.
Another added benefit is that no private data is accessed,
From the perspective of the patients, honest usage of SAMPARC could give them an option of home isolation instead of isolation in a government facility. From the perspective of the state officials, SAMPARC is expected to drastically reduce the overhead of tracking every patient under home isolation. The violators would be shown in Red on a map if they break the Geo-fence or their Selfie does not match, would be shown in blue if their smartphones stop sending periodic updates, and green if everything is found satisfactory. Once the period of quarantine or isolation is over, the patients can uninstall the App from their smartphone.
Tracking and resource allocation,
Features,
Prediction modelling based on INMAS modified SEIR Model.
Institute of Nuclear medicine and Allied sciences has developed modified version of Susceptible Exposed Infectious Recovered (SEIR) model to assess the effectiveness of the of various measures since the outbreak. INMAS modified SEIR model introduces muti-timelined partitioned approach to deal with the times series data containing various levels of social distancing measures.
Performance of predicting Total, Active, Recovered and Death cases of Covid 19:
The model takes the time series data from the official MoHFA web site as the input parameters. It takes the total infection, total active, total recovered and total death cases as input parameters.
Application for civil society:
The model is perfectly capable of handling the prediction of any other pandemic in the future. It can be deployed to the civil health organisations and allow them to feed the data on daily basis for them to understand their local health situations. The model also can be integrated with ministry of health and family affairs and ICMR database and provide them various data mining features to understand the current situation of the health status in the country.
Sanitizing mats for shoes and car
Shoes have high potential of spreading virus from one place to another. In COVID wards 65% of shoes are found to be infected by Corona virus. Similarly car tyres can also be potentially highly infective.
For detailed review of instruction visit the following link: https://www.drdo.gov.in/sites/default/files/inline-files/iNFORMATION_LEAFLET_SHOE_MAT_%26_CAR_MAT_1.pdf
Automated System for Decontamination of N95 Facemasks
An Automated System for Decontamination of Face masks is developed based on ‘Ultraviolet (UV–C) germicidal irradiation for killing the bacteria’ and Virus.
Subrahmanian K
DRDO is a well institute when it comes to defence. DRDO is the prime institute for new technologies, research and development in defence sector. However DRDO has developed a number of innovations and improvements to products that helps us in fighting the novel Corona virus.
Lets see some top products and innovations from DRDO,
AI Based Intelligent Covid-19 detector Technology for Medical
Assistance (ATMAN)
CAIR, DRDO has developed an AI based intelligent, secure, web based, Covid detection application software ATMAN using Chest X-rays which can classify the images into Normal, Covid-19 and Pneumonia classes using limited number (few hundreds) of sample images.
- Virus affects the lungs early even before the patient starts showing significant symptoms. Unlike RT PCR, this will take only seconds.
- ATMAN back end has been built with Deep Convolution Neural Network which is tuned to accurately detect Covid-19 irrespective of limited availability of Covid X-ray images for the system to learn. The software automatically prepossesses the images before passing them to the Neural net to take care of the variant illuminations levels of the X-ray images. The software is easy to navigate and the data can be accessed even from user end products like smartphones, tablets etc..
- Tested and validated by the doctors from M/s HCG Centre for Academics and Research, Bengaluru and M/s Ankh Life Care, by providing medical domain knowledge.
AI-Enabled Face Recognition based Contactless Attendance System
An easy to use, cost-effective, scalable contactless attendance system has been developed as alternate to Finger-print based attendance.
- The face-recognition based solution comprises of Single Board Computer (SBC), display, webcam and a motion sensor. The application software front-end, as shown in figures has been developed using PyQt framework, to achieve the desired real-time performance.
- Users have to wave their hand above a motion sensor (as shown in Figure 1) to initiate the detection process. Once the person is identified, the attendance is marked without any other input. The face detection model is based on Multi-Task Convolutional Neural Network (MTCNN) and face recognition model uses contrastive learning method
- The system requires few (10-20) sample images of each employee to train the AI model. However, during the run-time, the system does not require any user face image. The training is done in an offline mode on a GPU compute platform. However, during operation the software runs on commodity CPU platform.
- The system can be deployed to new places, which would require training of AI model using the face images of the employees at the place of deployment. New employees can also be enrolled easily and scaled up.
Figure 1: Screenshot of the
Application Software and the deployed setup in CAIR
Drone Based Surveillance System
An unmanned aerial vehicle (DRONE) is configured for surveillance of Covid-19 hotspots and containment zones to ensure strict compliance of lockdown guidelines in densely populated areas, where streets are too narrow for motorised patrolling and police personnel are susceptible to infection in case of manual patrolling. The system has been developed by TBRL, Chandigarh in collaboration with industry partner.
- The size of drone is 2.5 ft x 2.5 ft and weight is less than 3 kg. It can be remotely operated through a hand-held tablet. It can fly up to 60 m altitude and has a range of 3 km with the capability of way point navigation. It is equipped with a public announcement system and an onboard video camera for recording and broadcasting real time video feed to the control room. The controlling software of the drone has built-in artificial intelligence tools for decision-making. The UAV automatically returns to its home location in case of any communication failure.
- The system has been demonstrated to the Chandigarh Police in a containment zone.
- Such system can act as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies, who have been a frontline warrior in this battle against the global pandemic.
SAMPARC Software
It has been learnt from official sources that DRDO is offering states an IT driven approach to enable tracking of people under quarantine or isolation.
Another added benefit is that no private data is accessed,
From the perspective of the patients, honest usage of SAMPARC could give them an option of home isolation instead of isolation in a government facility. From the perspective of the state officials, SAMPARC is expected to drastically reduce the overhead of tracking every patient under home isolation. The violators would be shown in Red on a map if they break the Geo-fence or their Selfie does not match, would be shown in blue if their smartphones stop sending periodic updates, and green if everything is found satisfactory. Once the period of quarantine or isolation is over, the patients can uninstall the App from their smartphone.
Tracking and resource allocation,
Features,
- Provision to select 1.5, 3, 5 km radius from epicentre and select the streets and houses for surveys within the radius automatically or manually
- Efficient allocation of houses to field workers
- Geofencing of quarantined person
- Notification to super admin, police, quarantine teams etc.
- Highlighting of houses in maps.
- Creation of databases.
- Ankle/arm based loT device, with modifiable configurations.
- GSM and GPS enabled system with real time tracking.
- Geofence, temper detection and battery status monitoring with mechanism for alerts to urban police or authorities.
- Linked with Aarogya Setu app for updating in servers.
- Battery capacity up to 21 days, so can be used in the quarantine without charging
Prediction modelling based on INMAS modified SEIR Model.
Institute of Nuclear medicine and Allied sciences has developed modified version of Susceptible Exposed Infectious Recovered (SEIR) model to assess the effectiveness of the of various measures since the outbreak. INMAS modified SEIR model introduces muti-timelined partitioned approach to deal with the times series data containing various levels of social distancing measures.
Performance of predicting Total, Active, Recovered and Death cases of Covid 19:
The model takes the time series data from the official MoHFA web site as the input parameters. It takes the total infection, total active, total recovered and total death cases as input parameters.
Application for civil society:
The model is perfectly capable of handling the prediction of any other pandemic in the future. It can be deployed to the civil health organisations and allow them to feed the data on daily basis for them to understand their local health situations. The model also can be integrated with ministry of health and family affairs and ICMR database and provide them various data mining features to understand the current situation of the health status in the country.
Sanitizing mats for shoes and car
Shoes have high potential of spreading virus from one place to another. In COVID wards 65% of shoes are found to be infected by Corona virus. Similarly car tyres can also be potentially highly infective.
- INMAS, Delhi has innovated to prevent the spread of corona virus through shoes and car tyres. This solution is based on PVC Mat with threading to retain the moisture. Artificial grass is the second choice. Rubber and Coir mats are not suitable.
- 150 ppm sodium hypochlorite gel used as the disinfectant has advantages of enhanced stability, better moisture retention and non-chlorine composition. This leaves minimum footprint which can be wiped off easily. For cars 200 ppm solution can be used.
- Continuing bacteriology tests has shown 2-log scale kill effect and is safer to handle compared to alternative solutions.
For detailed review of instruction visit the following link: https://www.drdo.gov.in/sites/default/files/inline-files/iNFORMATION_LEAFLET_SHOE_MAT_%26_CAR_MAT_1.pdf
Automated System for Decontamination of N95 Facemasks
An Automated System for Decontamination of Face masks is developed based on ‘Ultraviolet (UV–C) germicidal irradiation for killing the bacteria’ and Virus.
- This unit comprises of two subsystems. One is the Air Sterilization Unit (ASU) and the other is Automated Feeding Supply of face masks configured as per time required for sterilization of every mask. Very high intensity radiation is achieved inside the ASU to the tune of 69.07 J/s/cm2 which ensures the high Sterility Assurance Level (SAL).
- The sterilization efficacy of the unit conducted through virus challenge studies. The studies are being carried out in Bio Safety Cabinet (BSC) class II-b in a contained environment.
- The prototype is realized and it is able to meet the US-FDA requirement of 'viricidal activity of at least 3 log reduction'. The face masks thus treated in this system can be reused for many cycles.
Prototype for Automated
Decontamination of Facemasks
Containerized Test Module
R&DE Engineers, Pune has configured a
containerized test lab module for COVID-19 related testing mobile laboratory.
- This can be utilized as testing lab and accommodating doctors/ paramedics.
- One module can accommodate 06 persons at a time.
- The module can be transported to remote locations.
LMV Mounted Area Sanitization Unit
This is a simple and affordable solution
since the kit can be easily assembled and disassembled on to the LMVs.
Outdoor areas
can be sanitized in the lab campus, defence units or industrial establishments
etc., besides frequented locations like bus stops, railway parks, roads etc..
Packed Food Technology
DRDO has expertise in preparing long lasting food
for armed forces. The food products are prepared in stringent hygienic
conditions while following applicable standard protocols.
·The Ready to Eat (RTE) food products are packed in multi layer retort pouches and processed in a special retort as per internationally accepted food standards. After processing, the food products are tested for their microbiological quality and cleared for supplies. The shelf life of these products is one year under room temperature.
Medidoot - Medical Trolley
Medidoot
medical trolley is designed to supply critical items – Food, Cloth &
Medicine to the patients in the isolated wards, thereby reducing the exposure
of doctors and other health staff to the infected area/ patients.
The
design of M/s JanYu Technologies, a start-up was reviewed by ASL, DRDO and
product was improvised to suit the Covid-19 requirements.
Trolley is provided with an alarm to alert the patients when the trolley reaches the destination,
- Short circuit protection mechanism is in-built for patient safety
- Pilot light is provided to alert the people that the device is in operation
- A battery charge level indicator is provided in the interface console
- The trolley can be easily sanitized (Dry/Wet) post operation without removal of any of the components
Sammukh - Video conferencing
solution in Internet
- This VC facility is provided for DRDO community to meet the requirement of uninterrupted working. This VC facility has been setup in DRDO premises and is named as SAMMUKH.
- A typical usage scenario diagram of SAMMUKH is shown in the figure below. The Sammukh VC server is hosted on secured domain.
