RAPID: Automatic and Non-intrusive Screening for Potential Viral Disease Carriers

West Virginia University Research Corporation, Morgantown WV

Investigators

Abstract

Viral disease outbreaks such as Ebola epidemic can be a serious concern for the general public. Many these viral diseases cause a temperature increase in human body and can be visually detected from infrared images. This project develops an intelligent system to automatically detect human body temperature for non-intrusively screening potential viral disease carriers from a crowd. The system is built on recent advances in computer vision technologies and thermal infrared sensors. This project addresses an important and interesting application of computer vision. The research leads to development of a prototype system that can be deployed in a public pace to automatically measure human body temperatures from facial images. The research work includes discovering how to localize the facial features accurately and precisely from both visible and infrared images for the purpose of accurate measure of body temperatures and reducing false alarms in screening of potential viral disease carriers. The key approach utilizes both visible light and infrared spectra to achieve a robust solution. It can also process multiple people in a crowd non-intrusively and speed up the screening process. The research in this project can address the critical need for screening of viral disease carriers, and advance the study on machine vision algorithms applicable to an important and practical problem related to public health.