In line with the ongoing efforts to combat the pandemic crisis, a team of researchers at Khalifa University of Science and Technology have recently launched an app that will use machine intelligence to collect data from smartphone users with the aim of identifying if they are in COVID-19 ‘high risk’ category.

As per a WAM report, the app, named ‘CovidSense’, will target all smartphones to record metadata and self-reported health status data in order to navigate the presence of COVID-19. It will also record cough, breathing sounds, heart rate, and the GPS location from the smartphone, along with the details of those people with whom the users interacted in recent days.

Using this data, the app will help users under quarantine to check their location and symptoms and will also provide them with appropriate health control measures to protect them against the disease.

The app will use the data collected from smartphones to monitor the developments in the health status of the user over a period of time. It will also inform the concerned physicians about the status of COVID-19 patients in question.

In an updated version in the near future, the app is also designed to allow researchers to form ‘Deep Learning’ models to chalk out a ‘reliable predictive high-risk index’. The updated version of the app will also seek to reduce the spread of the virus by alerting the healthcare workers in a bid to help them in ensuring adequate measures at the right time and place.

The team of researchers behind the development of the ‘CovidSense’ app was led by Dr. Leontios Hadjileontiadis, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Acting Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Khalifa University; along with Dr Herbert F. Jelinek, Associate Professor; Dr. Ahsan Khandoker, Associate Professor; and Dr. Kinda Khalaf, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Khalifa University. They will also assist in metadata and physiological signal analysis when the app will obtain the date from smartphone users.

In addition to this, Khalifa University has also collaborated with the research Lab 'Signal Processing and Biomedical Technology Unit' of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Greece-based Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in assistance by the development team of Tsoumalis George, Zafiris Bampos, and Iakovakis Dimitrios, to carry out the implementation of the function versions of the 'CovidSense' app in operating systems of both iPhone and Android smartphones. 

WAM