An Intelligent IoT-based COVID-19 Contact Tracing System for Ashesi University

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of contagious diseases demand isolation and quarantining of infected persons and people they have been in close proximity with. This can be easily achieved if technology-based systems are designed to facilitate contact tracing. The aim of this research project is to develop a privacy focused IoT-based COVID-19 contact tracing system that leverages mobile devices and artificial intelligence for the Ashesi University community. To achieve this, we divided the project into two main parts The software sub-system and the hardware subsystem. The software sub-system comprises of a cross-platform mobile application that tracks users, and an admin portal to monitor user activities. The hardware sub-system is an IoT-based system that uses a Raspberry Pi to capture indoor images with the aid of a Raspberry Pi camera module. It processes the images to determine whether the occupants of the room have been in close proximity with one another or not while relaying feedback to them via its actuators and at the same time updates the admin portal. Through system testing, it was identified that 32% our system users considered privacy during the pandemic as critical even though 95% confirmed that the system assures very high level of privacy. © 2022 IEEE.