(Below is a translation of the article)
Under the tide of national epidemic prevention, the Secretary of Development Bureau Wong Wai Lun revealed good news yesterday. The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department encouraged local science and technology companies to develop technology against the epidemic. One of the projects is a body temperature measuring robot, so that the body temperatures of all people who enter the building will be detected.
Wong revealed on his blog yesterday that as the government ’s enabler of innovation, EMSD also hopes to contribute by using innovative technology to prevent and fight against the epidemic. The department’s “E&M InnoPortal” has always been pairing up government departments and public institutions with local tech startups and providing testing venues for the projects.
Robot tested at government headquarters with satisfactory results
In response to the epidemic situation, the Department posted a series of anti-epidemic related innovative technology requirements on their special page, such as the development of mobile temperature measurement robots and mobile indoor disinfection robots; the development of robots which can deliver catering, medicine, and documents to people under quarantine, thereby reducing the risk of close contact and infection between people; also development of substances or coatings which can disinfect automatically. At the same time, the Department stepped up to contact strategic partners to find suitable projects. As a result, they received more than 100 related projects within two weeks.
One of the successful projects is the mobile body temperature detection robot. The co-founder of the company who developed the robot, Prof. Poon Ka Yeung said they rushed to produce a mobile robot which combines artificial intelligence and can provide automatic body temperature detection. The robot can walk along routes set on the map and according to different environments and is especially suitable for places without fixed gates or with crowds waiting. Once it detects a person with abnormal or higher body temperature, the robot will display a red image on the monitor and an alarm will be sent to alert management staff to take follow-up actions.
When the Government resumed normal operation on 2 March, EMSD tested the robot at the main entrance of the EMSD Headquarter. After four consecutive days of testing, the results in monitoring body temperatures were satisfactory. The robot is compatible with Wi-Fi and 4G networks and can carry out missions under different environments, which greatly reduces the workload of manually measuring body temperature.
Source: Hong Kong Commercial Daily