K-quarantine Goes High-tech

The Seoul metropolitan area is seeing a spike in COVID-19 cluster infections lately, mostly in churches.

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Jung Eun-kyeong (Director, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention): Cluster outbreaks are spreading to schools, daycare centers, workplaces and markets. It’s an urgent situation, as they can spread nationwide.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious virus compared to other viruses. As the number of daily cases continues to soar, prevention measures are also improving. From epidemiological surveys to disinfection — quarantine measures that required human intervention to fight the virus are becoming more and more sophisticated. Korea is taking cues from innovative technologies in the era of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, including cutting-edge information technology. What does the future hold for Korean quarantine based on scientific technologies?
Preventing infections on crowded subway trains used by hundreds of passengers daily is especially important. A smart virus prevention system has been installed at the entrances of all subway stations between Gimpo Airport and downtown Gimpo.

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Check your temperature before entering.

This system is checking temperatures using artificial intelligence. People whose temperature exceeds a certain level are banned from entering the station.

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Lee Ki-man (Subway station staff): Because subway stations are confined spaces, social distancing is almost impossible there. We installed a smart temperature check device at the entrance to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

The second feature is mask detection, as face masks are now mandatory on all public transportation.

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Put on your mask. Your temperature is normal. Keep your mask on.

Such AI-based quarantine systems could cause inconvenience in busy subway stations, but passengers don’t seem to mind, as long as they feel safe.

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Park Joo-won (passenger):　I feel safer than I did before this system was installed.　It informs me of things I can’t check on my own. It’s very convenient.

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Ahn Woo-young (passenger): It might be inconvenient to have to wait in line, but we need it in these tumultuous times, even if it’s inconvenient.

At airports, non-contact services using state-of-the-art information technologies help prevent the spread of the virus.

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Ahn Byung-wook (Passenger): I’m sure everyone here is following prevention guidelines. But it’s still worrisome, so I use non-contact services as much as possible.

Gimpo Airport provides identity verification services using bio-sensors that eliminate the need for passengers to take off their masks. At boarding gates, passengers can scan their bar codes on their own.
At Incheon International Airport, things look completely different from the way they were before the pandemic. It provides scales equipped with ultrasound sensors and 3D camera sensing technologies. Passengers can easily and accurately use this self bag drop service. In the departure area, passengers can use a new smart quarantine service.

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Hong Seo-yeon (Smart Quarantine PJ Team, Incheon International Airport): These self-temperature check kiosks can check the temperatures of 30 people simultaneously. They can even track their faces when they are moving.

The kiosks check people’s temperatures around the clock. When someone with an elevated body temperature is detected, an alarm goes off. There is also a newly developed robot that can check temperatures around the clock on behalf of medical workers.

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Hello. I am Sero.I will check your temperature and inform you of safety precautions according to your result. Let’s begin. Please, look up. Fit your body to the frame. Your temperature is normal. You’re keeping your mask on very well. Free pass.

This autonomous robot moves around in the departure area to check people’s temperatures.

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Hong Seo-yeon (Smart Quarantine PJ Team, Incheon International Airport): This robot helps passengers check their temperature prior to check-in.

This smart robot is an upgraded version of an autonomous robot that used to provide directions at Incheon Airport. Now it can also provide guidelines on how to prevent COVID-19. Like quarantine officials, this robot also emphasizes the importance of wearing face masks.

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You must have forgotten to put on your mask. Please, check mask guidelines. This is where you can buy a mask at Terminal 2.

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Hong Seo-yeon (Smart Quarantine PJ Team, Incheon International Airport): We also plan to upgrade and introduce a robot that can provide social distancing guidelines. We will also introduce robots that can trace and automatically disinfect areas visited by people with symptoms.

Most of the quarantine measures enforced so far are focused on individual temperature checks and mask wearing. A convention center in Songdo Smart City has a quarantine system that can monitor up to tens of thousands of people at once.

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Min Jun-hong (Convention Center Team, Incheon Tourism Organization): This Convention Center has a two-step quarantine system. It can conduct infrastructure and electronic quarantine simultaneously. Infrastructure quarantine automatically checks temperature.

To ensure visitors’ safety, disinfecting mats are installed at every entrance of the building and basic prevention guidelines are provided. The key point of this system, the only of its kind in Korea, is to collect information on visitors and their routes using IoT technology.

The 174 IoT sensors installed inside the convention center collect information on visitors’ movements.　They are displayed in the control system after visitors install a smartphone app and enter their personal information, including their name, phone number, gender and nationality. AI tracks movements inside the building and displays high-density areas.

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If an infected person is found to have visited our facility, we can provide records on all visitors to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters immediately.

Visitors’ personal information and movement data are stored for two weeks before being erased.　Those who attend events held at the convention center are required to provide their information through QR codes. The informations is also deleted after two weeks for privacy reasons. Data on people’s movements help the government conduct epidemiological surveys quicker.
An epidemiological survey support system that was developed back in April using smart city technology drew the global spotlight for its ability to trace the movements of infected people within just ten minutes. Needless to say, it has a reliable security function to prevent privacy leaks.

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Park Young-joon (Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention): This technology is expected to be of help by delivering swift and more accurate results.

Recently, a user tracing system using smartphones has been developed. The key point of this technology is sensor signals sent by built-in GPS and wireless Internet. It allows for a faster and more accurate way to trace users’ routes compared to using personal testimonies or data from mobile phone base stations.

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Han Dong-soo (Professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology): The advantage of this technology is that it allows to conduct epidemiological surveys faster and easier, and helps the public to check virus exposure using the app.

Accurate tracing of infected people’s movements is essential for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Once this technology is commercialized, epidemiological survey systems will become more advanced, while ordinary people will be able to protect themselves more effectively.
In the era of COVID-19, scientific technologies for virus prevention are being used widely to ensure safety and protect people’s health. One of them is a smart commute system.

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Jeon In-soo (Staff at company that developed smart commute system): Employees can verify their IDs and check their temperature simultaneously using a kiosk. This system is used to prevent infected people　and those with symptoms from going to work.

This company developed a quarantine system using QR codes in unmanned kiosks. They check the temperatures of people coming into confined space and provide those with a fever directions to the closest public health center. The company plans to further develop the system so that it can transmit data on infected people’s movements to health authorities.

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Park Jin-hong (CEO of company that developed smart commute system):　The demand for various quarantine devices has surged due to COVID-19. Our goal is to provide accurate data for epidemiological surveys to health authorities using QR codes through location-based services in addition to existing kiosks.

In the near future, smart mask vending machines featuring temperature check kiosks will also be introduced.

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Place the QR code at the bottom so that people in wheelchairs and children can also use it.

Once these vending machines are commercialized, anyone will be able to check their temperature in a few easy steps.
Cutting-edge technologies are also being used in disinfection, another important aspect of quarantine. As one of the top-five global leaders in robotics, Korea is utilizing robots in various fields.
After more than six months of the nation’s battle against COVID-19, its disinfection methods are also getting smarter. Korea used to have severe shortages of disinfection personnel at public facilities, but the problem can be solved easily using disinfection drones.

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Kim Yun-hong (Yeongdong-gun County Aviation Disaster Prevention Corps): The altitude is kept low so that the ground can be disinfected evenly. It’s much faster and more efficient than carrying the gear on the back and disinfecting manually.

It takes a maximum of 15 minutes for a disinfection drone to sprinkle 10 liters of a disinfectant over an area of 8200 square meters. Disinfection drones with proven efficiency are also equipped with speakers used to broadcast safety precautions.
Then what about disinfecting indoor spaces, where drones can’t be used? This is an autonomous disinfection robot. Users can move it freely to any location.

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Yoo Jang-pyo (Staff at company that developed disinfection robot): This disinfection robot has a tank for storing disinfectants.　The time and amount of disinfectants released through a special nozzle can be controlled.

Through this nozzle, the robot sprinkles the required amount of disinfectants in designated areas. When its mission is complete, it stops automatically. In addition to disinfection, this robot is also used to transmit data on its surroundings to a control room. The robot moves around to collect various data through its camera and sensors.

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UVC can be harmful to people. We turn if off when there are people around, and only turn on UVA and disinfectant release.

The company that developed this robot is currently looking for ways to attach an ultraviolet lamp to the robot to remove viruses in the air in indoor spaces. From patrol to disinfection — robots’s virus prvention features expected to continue to evolve further.

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Kim Jin-hyo (CEO of company that developed quarantine robot): Robots are better at disinfecting than people and are much safer. We plan to continue to develop robots that can be used for quarantine purposes around the clock. I hope that our robots will help stop the COVID-19 pandemic, which is giving a hard time to the whole world.

COVID-19 poses a greater threat because it spreads quickly. The only way to effectively stop its spread is by preventing contact between healthy and infected people. As there is no vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 yet, Korean smart quarantine technologies for detecting infected persons are receiving a lot of attention from around the world.