The world is currently going through the third wave of COVID-19, which is considered to be more dangerous than the previous waves. Many pharmaceutical companies have come up with vaccines to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and countries with a significantly high number of COVID-19 cases are imposing lockdowns. The primary step to prevent any virus from spreading sporadically is to practice social distancing. Experts around the world are emphasizing the importance of social distancing. In order to spread awareness about social distancing, Vaibhav Rupapara has developed a mobile computing system by which social distancing can be maintained by using acoustic waves from smartphones.
According to Vaibhav, a smartphone can detect and connect to another closest smartphone by transmitting acoustic waves. The frequency of acoustic waves can be adjusted for detecting a wider spectrum of mobile carriers. In order to be compatible with this system, a smartphone needs to have a microphone, a speaker, and a decent processor. The system does not require Bluetooth, Infrared connectivity, and GPS thereby minimizing battery consumption. The most interesting fact about this system is that it works without the internet and does not require access to personal information. It exchanges signals with other devices through ultrasound. These audio waves can also be used underground. This system is very useful for remote areas where there are network connectivity issues.
Maintaining Social Distancing in Pandemic Using Smartphones With Acoustic Waves article has been published on IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems which can be accessed via https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSS.2021.3092942. In this research, other team members were Manideep Narra (U.S.), Naresh Kumar Gunda (U.S.), Swapnil Gandhi (India), and Kaushika Reddy Thipparthy (U.S.).
When you are in a crowded place and you fail to maintain 6 feet distance from others, your smartphone will warn you by sending notifications and alert sounds until you maintain a safe distance. In this system, the data transmission is simplex. There will be two devices: Source and Receiver. Source would emit audio waves which would have a sampling rate twice as much as the frequency. The audio waves are then encoded for minimizing noise. Encoded waves are then transmitted with HSF (Handshake start frequency) which is used for authentication. Receiver decodes the encoded waves after verifying the HSF and transmits the audio waves. The purpose of sending sound waves is to measure the distance between two smartphones. The audio frequency used in this system will lie between 16.5 kHz and 19 kHz.
For almost a year and a half, COVID-19 has paralyzed our day-to-day lives. We often fail to take care of COVID-19 SOPs and we cannot anticipate how worse it can get. By making the best use of technology in such a situation, Vaibhav has developed a simple, all-inclusive, and inexpensive system for maintaining social distance that can play a major role in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Vaibhav is also planning to publish a book on Machine Learning in Health Care shortly and will be working on developing IoT Based Smart Healthcare System for Monitoring Patients’ with Acute Heart Failure.
