IoT Based gate for Covid-19 prevention measures: Case study of churches in Kigabiro sector, Rwamagana district

Abstract

The whole world is facing Covid-19 pandemic caused by a coronavirus which is affecting negatively various spheres of life and requires to take strict preventions measures. Some of the measures taken are implemented by people themselves placed at the entrance of specific public places to help screen body temperature and record people address related details. In many public entry points, manual methods involving the use of books and handheld thermometer to screen their body temperature were adopted. The use of such methods is costly in term of time and numbers of workers deployed at entry points to ensure proper implementation of prevention measures. In addition, people may forget to get test through handheld thermometer and can be granted passing permission with suspect temperature or without being recorded. More time also is required to check in books records for contact tracing. The current study is intended to demonstrate how IoT based gate for covid-19 prevention measures in public places with frequent users such as churches was prototyped with MLX90614 IR thermometer sensor can enable contactless body temperature scanning, RFID based automatic address details recording, computerized database to store recorded data and enable simplified contact tracing, and automatic notification system to concerned people in case of Covid-19 patient suspect for quick response. Prototype was tested and the results shows that the IoT based gate for covid-19 prevention measures simplified implementation of the covid-19 preventions measures as it allow only customers recorded, with body temperature screened and with allowed temperature. The system reduces time taken to record address details of person by 90% and number of workers required by 66.6%. It provided a simplified reporting system as data are visualized online from computerized database. The system is used on gate of public places with regular users as it requires each user to possess RFID card and to be registered once. It is recommended, among other things, to the government to adopt the system, expand it and synchronized it with National Identity Agencies database to enable every user with National Identity card to use it in any every places without being registered.