Health Minister launches drone to tackle COVID-19

Muscat: Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Saidi, Minister of Health launched today drone technique in a bid to contribute in reducing the spread of COVID-19.

On the basis of many countries’ experiences to curb COVID-19 by using the artificial intelligence systems including robots, drones and the internet of things to detect the infected persons, this smart technique will help to improve managing this crisis.

As part of the social responsibility, a joint team was formed, comprising researchers and academics from the Engineering College of the Sultan Qaboos University and Azm Technology Company, which is one of the specialized companies in this field. The team has developed a smart system using drones to measure the temperature of the human and therefore registered it remotely.

This technique aims to detect the suspected and unreported cases to avoid the outbreak of the infection due to social contact. The drones are provided with advanced thermal imaging to measure the temperature remotely.

The major challenge of the current drones is the lack of required high accuracy to measure the temperature outside the buildings. The team will improve the measuring device by the algorithm of artificial intelligence in order to be more reliable in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the team will form field groups to use the smart technique if necessary.