Nokia develops COVID-19 detection system; here's how it detects temperature, mask

Nokia is already using the system in its factory in Chennai (India) for two months and has screened more than 200,000 people in that facility

Photo Credit : Nokia / Reuters

Nokia has created an automated system that uses a thermal camera and real-time video analytics to determine if a person has COVID-19 symptoms and is wearing a mask, part of efforts to protect employees as they return to work.

The Finnish company has been using the system in its factory in Chennai, India, for two months and has screened more than 200,000 people in that facility.

The factory, which was closed for some time to comply with Indian regulations following the coronavirus outbreak, has more than 1,000 employees.

The system detects whether a person has a high temperature or is not wearing their face-mask and alerts the operation centre, the head of Analytics and IoT for Nokia, Amit Shah, told Reuters.

It comes with its privacy settings where faces can be blurred to comply with local regulations and deployed across different locations and monitored from a central facility without the need to keep a person at every checkpoint.

"Nokia factories and R&D centres are deploying this," Shah said, adding that talks were also at "pretty advanced stages" on deploying the system in North America, Latin America and Asia and across sectors including schools and government buildings.

Nokia said customers could expand the product to add other features, including predictive surveillance, machine maintenance and security threats. 

As part of its efforts to protect employees against COVID-19, Nokia has developed an automated system that uses a thermal camera and real-time video analytics to detect whether a person has COVID-19 symptoms or not. The automatic system also detects if a person is wearing a mask.

This system has been created to help the companies implement rules when its employees in India return to work.

The Finnish company is already using the system in its factory in Chennai (India) for two months. It has screened more than 200,000 people in that facility.

Nokia's factory in the southern city of India was closed for the last few months in wake of the coronavirus-led lockdown and nearly 1,000 employees returned to work after operation resumed at the facility.

According to Amit Shah, the head of Analytics and IoT, the system detects if a person has a high temperature or is not wearing face-mask and alerts the operation centre, reported Reuters.

facts credit: Reuters