Automatic Non-Contact Fever Detection System Using Thermometer

Virtually Maker Faire 2020

May 22nd-23rd

Fevers are one of the top two symptoms of COVID-19 (the other being coughs); a critical component to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to quickly detect fevers in public places, such as schools, supermarkets, elder care centers, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. While it is easy to measure a person's temperature using a thermometer, it is difficult to automatically check a person's temperature in public places without a dedicated nurse or healthcare worker to take temperature of each person. There are large infrared thermo-image based systems available to check for fevers among large amounts of moving crowds in places like airport and train stations. However, these systems are expensive and need dedicated personnel to monitor the images.

I have invented a simple automatic fever detection system for places with intermediate crowd traffic. The system uses the proven high accurate thermometer and makes the fever detection an automatic process. It consists of a non-contact thermometer, a motion detection system, a trigger system and an alarm system. The application scenario will be: a person approaches the system and stands still, the system will automatically take their forehead's temperature without contact. If a elevated temperature is detected, it will emit an alarm sound and a red LED light. The alarm sound and red light alarm will get attention of the workers in the public places and other actions might be necessary. For example, in a school, a person with fever might be taken to nurse's office for further evaluation.

The automatic fever detection system is controlled by an Arduino board, which has an interface to the motion detection. Once it detects a person is in the right places for temperature measurement, it generates a trigger signal to drive a solenoid actuator to push the button of the thermometer to take a temperature. The thermometer has a color indicator to indicate fever (red) or not (green). A color detector is used to detect the result. A vision sensor can be used to read the real temperature number to Arduino and to detect if there is a fever. This system is all controlled by an Arduino nano board.