Design and Implementation of a Social Distancing and Contact Tracing Wearable
Yannick Verbelen, Suresh Kaluvan, Ulrike Haller, Morgan Boardman, Tom B. Scott · 2020
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic early 2020 has presented humanity with the unprecedented challenge to tackle a global health emergency that spreads through close social contact on an overpopulated planet. After easing nationwide lockdown measures, and with socio-economic activities starting to normalise, there is an increased awareness for the importance of social distancing to prevent further spreading of the virus. The implementation of a contact tracing system to identify infected individuals and isolate them from society through rapid quarantining requires technological assistance on a scale that does not yet exist. In an effort to solve the problem, a novel design of a social distancing and contact tracing wearable is presented. The wearable uses RF communication both to exchange information with other devices, and to estimate proximity to each other. The demonstrated prototype shows the successful implementation of a highly autonomous, user friendly, robust, and technically capable wearable that can be deployed in critical environments where social distancing is difficult or impossible to enforce.