Towards Measuring Body Temperature Using COTS Mobile Devices

ABSTRACT

Body temperature measurement is one of the simple, yet effective ways to diagnose a variety of diseases, and its importance is growing in the era of COVID-19. In this paper, we show feasibility of measuring body temperature using a COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) mobile device. To this end, we utilize the battery temperature sensor embedded in most COTS mobile devices, and analyze how the battery temperature varies according to different temperatures of an external object that makes contact with the target mobile device (e.g., a hand holding the device). Our approach makes it possible to estimate the external object's temperature within 0.5 degrees C of accuracy, by (i) data collection of the battery temperature variation for some pairs of the initial battery temperature and the target object temperature, (ii) virtual data generation for the other pairs, and (iii) temperature estimation via classification of the collected data and generated ones.