A portable screening system for onboard entry screening at international airports using a microwave radar, reflective photo sensor and thermography

Abstract

We developed a portable screening system designed for onboard entry screening at international airports. The system can identify passengers who are potentially infected with epidemic diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or pandemic influenza. With its size being small enough to be placed on airplane tray tables, the system enables entry screening while passengers are onboard. In addition, this automatic system may greatly reduce time and effort required for screening. This system is operated by a real time screening program via a linear discriminant analysis using derived variables, i.e., palmar pulse obtained by a reflective photo sensor, respiration rate determined by a 10-GHz microwave radar, and facial temperature measured by thermography. As reported in our previous study, the system has a higher accuracy in detecting influenza by using facial temperature, heart rate and respiration rate, compared to conventional fever screening. In order to assess the efficacy of this screening system, we tested on three influenza patients (38.4 ºC ≤ body temperature ≤ 39.2 ºC, 22-34 years) and 52 healthy volunteers (35.9 ºC ≤ body temperature ≤ 37.0 ºC, 20- years).The results showed that sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) are both 100%. In order to reduce negative false passenger, sensitivity and NPV are the most important parameters for entry screening at the boarders. The specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) were 88% and 33% respectively. This portable system can be applied to future onboard entry screening to safeguard public health at the boarders.

Multiple Vital-Sign-Based Infection Screening Outperforms Thermography Independent of the Classification Algorithm

“…Since training and hyperparameter optimization can be performed in advance on workstations, the most important time to consider is the average classification time. Although, in practice, the classifier will be running on a slow embedded system, the classification times in our experiments were several magnitudes below the time needed for data acquisition, which is in the range of 10 s [9], [10]. Thus, the classification time can be considered as negligible for practical purposes.…”

“…The technical details of the infection screening system are provided in our previous papers [9], [10]. The system automatically detects infected individuals within 15 s via a classification method using measured multiple vital-signs (see Fig.…”

Impact of pandemic control over airport economics: Reconciling public health with airport business through a streamlined approach in pandemic control

“…Prototype portable on-board screening systems have been successfully invented to capture both normal and infra-red images (Sun et al, 2011). Combining both still images and thermal images from each individual, individual passenger profiles can be created and processed in the CrewTablet for easy tracking.…”

A neural network-based infection screening system that uses vital signs and percutaneous oxygen saturation for rapid screening of patients with influenza

“…We have upgraded our previous portable infection screening system by including a pulse oximeter module. The technical details have been reported in previous papers from the viewpoint of medical system engineering [13,14]. The biosensors consist of a thermography to monitor facial temperature (NIPPON AVIONICS, Thermo shot F30, Japan), a 10-GHz respiration radar to determine respiration rate (new JRC, NJR4175, Japan), and a pulse oximeter module to calculate the SpO 2 and heart rate (NONIN Medical, OEM III, USA).…”