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Covid-19 eHealth Data Acquisition Unit (COVeHealth)

Lead Participant: V2G EVSE LIMITED

Abstract

The UK is currently in "lock down" due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Before putting the currently locked down country back to work we need to:

1) Reduce the incidence of cases to reduce the burden on the NHS to more normal levels

2) Once that is achieved, we need to prevent the virus from catching fire a second time

To reduce the risk of a second wave, we need to develop tools to enable us to:

a) Preemptively identify early stage Covid-19 sufferers

b) Use these tools to guard the borders of spaces (hospitals, homes, shops, workplaces, shopping malls, schools, universities etc.)

The World Health Organization's message is that we must **"Find, isolate, test and treat every case to break the chains of Covid transmission."**

Covid-19 screening tests are currently performed at a modest distance by a health worker using a "no touch" infrared thermometer to detect the tell tale fever. The other common symptom indicative of Covid-19 is the persistent dry cough, detected by the characteristic sound.

What is desperately needed, both in the UK and around the World, is a way of performing screening for early stage Covid-19 symptoms remotely.

With DfT seed funding V2G EVSE have developed a low cost "smart" 0G to 5G enabled communications controller with a wide range of input/output, currently configured to monitor and control an electric vehicle charging station and securely communicate with a cloud based management system.

We will repurpose our existing technology by connecting the controller to a microphone and infra-red camera, then use novel machine learning algorithms to detect the characteristic cough and fever of Covid-19 sufferers. This will allow us to create an installed or hand held device that can be used to identify those with potential Covid-19 symptoms.

Since our existing hardware is effectively the internals of a smartphone with no touch screen but more versatile communications, including Bluetooth, we are also ideally placed to participate in the recently announced Apple/Google track/trace initiative.

The COVeHealth project will develop proof of concept prototypes of a "commercial" version suitable for use at the entrance to public spaces and an alternative low-cost "domestic" version for use hand held or in confined spaces.

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

V2G EVSE LIMITED £49,506 £ 49,506

Publications

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