IIT Roorkee develops mobile app to tackle COVID-19

 In a bid to help the government deal with COVID-19, researchers at Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) have developed a mobile application that can track movement of people with the disease and also can do geofencing around him or her.

The system will get an alert, if geofencing is violated by the quarantined person, IIT Roorkee said in a statement on Monday.

Besides live tracking, the administrator can view the entire movement history of an individual, it said, adding that in case GPS data is not received, the location will be obtained automatically through the triangulation of mobile towers.

If the internet is not working in a certain area, the location will be received through SMS.

"The tracking system allows for state-of-the-art surveillance during COVID-19. Besides facilitating quarantine management, it helps to overcome overcrowding at any location by issuing an alert to the predefined agency," said Professor Kamal Jain, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Roorkee who developed the application.

"This is our small step to supplement government efforts in these testing times," Jain added.

It also allows the sharing photographs of quarantined persons/places on a Google map, uploading geotag images to a server.

Furthermore, administrators can view all reports on a map.

If installed on the device of an affected person, it can provide a history of all people in his vicinity for a defined period.

"We are committed to aiding the efforts of the government during this unprecedented time. This system will greatly help in tracking and surveillance of COVID-19 suspects," said Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.

The Indian government earlier this month unveiled an app called Aarogya Setu designed to alert users if they have come in close proximity with any COVID-19 positive patient. IANS