A Novel Approach on Covid-19 Contact Tracing – Utilization of Low Calibrated Transmission Power & Signal Captures in BLE

ABSTRACT

Covid-19 pandemic has compelled countries to conduct contact tracing vigorously in order to curb the highly infectious virus from further spread. In this context, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has been broadly used, utilizing Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) for Close Contact Identification (CCI). However, many of the available solutions are not able to adhere to the guidelines provided by Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention which are (1) Distance requirement of within 6-feet (~2 meters) and (2) Minimum 15-minutes duration for CCI. In providing some closure to the gap, we proposed a novel approach of utilizing (1) Low calibrated transmission power (Tx) and (2) Number of signal captures. Our proposed approach is to lowly calibrate Tx so that when distance is at 2 meters between users, number signal capture gets lower as the chipset’s smallest RSSI sensitivity value has been reached. In this paper, complete experimentation for Proof of Concept (POC) and Pilot test conducted are demonstrated. Results obtained shows that the accuracy for POC utilizing signal captures for 2±0.3 m distance is at (1) 71.43% for 5 users and (2) 70.69% for 9 users. While so, accuracy for the Pilot test when considering CCI on individual case-basis is at 95% for 5 users. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee ESJ, Italy.