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infraredfeverscreeningsystem · 5 years ago

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DERMALOG Fever Check at the Wiesbaden Casino

Via prnewswire.com

After a mandatory corona break of several weeks, casinos and gambling resorts in Germany are reopening. Operators have to comply with numerous hygiene regulations to minimize infection risks for customers and employees. This is why German Wiesbaden Casino has opted for DERMALOG’s non-contact fever detection.

Infrared fever detection systems for reopening covid 19.

WIESBADEN and HAMBURG, Germany, June 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — With its Fever Detection Camera, DERMALOG has developed a solution that measures body temperatures fast and accurately when walking by and can significantly reduce the risk of infection spreading in many areas. The Wiesbaden Casino has chosen the company’s system as part of its hygiene concept.

At the entrance of the prestigious casino, customers have to make the contactless fever check by DERMALOG before entering. The camera measures body temperature within one second by scanning people’s faces using state-of-the-art sensor technology. If an increased temperature is detected, the system displays an alert message. The solution sets data protection standards by measuring without capturing or storing any personal data. High accuracy, even from a distance of up to 2 meters, is another advantage of the camera. As an option, DERMALOG’s temperature check includes automated mask detection. If an area requires the use of face masks, the DERMALOG solution kindly advises people without appropriate protection to wear one.

“In these times, health protection for our guests and employees has absolute priority. The Fever Detection Camera makes a significant contribution here,” says Andreas Krautwald, managing director of the Wiesbaden Casino.

DERMALOG’s thermal camera is already being used in more than 60 countries. The “Made in Germany” system protects retail stores, offices, manufacturing halls, sports grounds, events, hotels, banks, public authorities and many other locations.

from Infrared Fever Screening System https://infraredfeverscreeningsystem.com/dermalog-fever-check-at-the-wiesbaden-casino/

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infraredfeverscreeningsystem · 5 years ago

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Thermal Imaging Systems In The Workplace: Panacea Or Problem? | Fisher Phillips – JDSupra

Via jdsupra.com

Employers are looking for better ways to monitor whether individuals entering their workplaces have been exposed to or are infected with COVID-19 – and the use of more sophisticated thermal scanning cameras or similar systems that can process many people quickly has emerged as a possible solution. Before implementing such technology in the workplace, however, you should consider the pros and cons of using them and the logistical hurdles required for implementing them.

Curated by infrared fever screening system for businesses.

Thermal imaging systems utilize infrared cameras to detect skin temperature from a distance and without actual contact to the skin. They have generally been in limited use in some industries for almost 20 years. Currently, they are being used in governmental and military applications, in transportation, food processing, and manufacturing plants.

Before you rush to use thermal imaging systems, you should consider the applicability of current and even future laws regulating their use. First, under the Americans With Disabilities Act (and similar state laws), measuring the body temperature of an employee is considered a medical examination and thus is subject to certain limitations. Along these lines, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently approved checking temperatures of employees and even suspending job offers to individuals who have a temperature in excess of 100.4 degrees. The EEOC justifies the use of such measurements now because of the “direct threat” of COVID-19 as a worldwide pandemic, but it is but unclear how long that justification will remain valid.

Second, some states and municipalities have laws that regulate biometric testing and/or facial recognition. For example, states such as California, Illinois, Texas, and Washington have laws regulating the collection and use of biometric identifiers, including fingerprints, handprints, retinal and/or facial scans and voiceprints. Additionally, local ordinances in Massachusetts prohibit the use of facial recognition technologies by government entities. Whether these laws may be used to regulate thermal imaging depends on the language of a particular statute.

Third, you need to consider common law or statutory privacy laws and take precautions not to violate them. Fourth, if your employees are represented by a union, you should consider whether you are permitted by the applicable collective bargaining agreement to implement such new technologies. You should consider whether you have a duty to bargain with the union representing your employees about such tests.

Finally, other laws have been proposed on a federal or state level regulating similar technologies. For example, the Commercial Facial Recognition Act of 2019 would prohibit commercial entities from using facial recognition technologies without the affirmative consent of the person who is being assessed.

Given the dynamic nature of the area, you should consult counsel and check the law in your jurisdiction before deciding to implement these new systems. If you decide to continue pursuing this technology, you should consider the advantages and disadvantages before you make a final decision, as outlined in the following discussion.

A primary advantage of thermal imaging is that the person who handles the system is not required to be physically close to the person being evaluated. In fact, the person who handles the thermal imaging system could be in a different area or room. This eliminates the need for personal protective equipment (PPE) and OSHA-required training for temperature takers, such as that required for work around bloodborne pathogens.

Thermal imaging systems generally have been shown to accurately measure someone’s surface skin temperature faster than the typical forehead or oral (mouth) thermometer that requires a close distance or physical contact with the person being evaluated. This means that thermal imaging systems are well adapted to triage large numbers of individuals for initial temperature assessment in high throughput areas, such as ports of entry, airports, train stations, sporting events, and other places where large numbers of individuals need to be scanned in a short time. For employers that operate food processing plants, construction sites, large manufacturing plants, or similar high-traffic businesses, this aspect of the system could be very welcome. It could solve logistical challenges while avoiding the thorny question of whether workers need to be compensated for the time waiting to have their temperatures taken.

Thermal imaging systems can also be an efficient and effective method of complying with requirements to take temperatures that may be imposed by government entities or other third parties, such as the owner of a construction site. For example, in Colorado, New Jersey, and New York City, among others, employers in certain industries have been required to check temperatures of employees in the workplace.

The main disadvantage is that thermal imaging does not detect whether someone has COVID-19. That’s because, among other things, a person with the coronavirus may not have a fever. A more complete diagnostic test must be performed to determine if someone has COVID-19.

Further, the accuracy of these systems depends on careful set-up and operation, and they need to be used in the right environment and location in order to be effective. Because these systems measure surface skin temperature, which is usually lower than a temperature measured orally, thermal imaging systems need to be properly adjusted to correct for this difference in measurements. And of course, the person handling the thermal imaging system needs to be properly trained for the results to be helpful.

Finally, as with many products, variances in quality exist among the available systems available for use. Those interested in using one need to carefully explore the various products on the market to determine which is best for their situation.

If you decide to proceed with a thermal imaging system at your workplace, here are some practical tips you should follow for the best results:

Thermal imaging systems can be an efficient and effective tool under the right circumstances. But employers need to make sure you are aware of the legal and practical limitations before rushing into the use of such systems.

read more at findbiometrics.com

from Infrared Fever Screening System https://infraredfeverscreeningsystem.com/verifyii-kiosk-offers-temperature-screening-credentialing-capabilities/

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infraredfeverscreeningsystem · 5 years ago

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COVID-19 Triggers a Market Boom for Thermal Technologies – EE Times Asia

Via eetasia.com

Thermal detectors are getting small enough and inexpensive enough to consider being integrated into smartphones…

curated by thermal body camera screening system for fever detection.

Thermal imaging and sensing technology will certainly be among the lines of defense against the Covid-19 virus, according to market research firm Yole Développement (Lyon, France), triggering a boom in the market for thermal technologies. Between 2019 and 2020, the thermal imager and thermal detector markets are projected to rise by 76 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Automotive down, thermography and public surveillance up

The Covid-19 pandemic is reshuffling the cards. High-volume applications such as automotive and ruggedized smartphones, which were expected to boom, are showing signs of stagnation, especially as production shifts towards more cameras for fever detection applications. Based on industry indicators, Yole now predicts that thermal imagers will be a $7.6 billion market, up 76 percent year-over-year. Previous forecasts predicted a $4.5 billion market, up 8 percent year-over-year.

Thermal imagers — microbolometers — have been struggling to penetrate the automotive market, and the current crisis will worsen the situation. The first effect is mechanical, said Éric Mounier, fellow analyst at Yole. Due to the slowdown in car shipments, microbolometer shipments for cars will drop.

“Microbolometers for night vision have always been considered as a luxury option in cars and an expensive add-on, we believe that, in the current sanitary crisis, people will put less money to buy high-end cars.” The second reason is that “thermal imaging is not yet considered as an important ADAS system in cars. We talk about CMOS image sensors, radars, lidars, but night vision is still perceived as a redundancy sensor for ADAS.”

Sensors are key to unlocking autonomous vehicles. They, however, generate a ton of data, and systems are limited by the processing power. One solution is improving data quality. “With infrared cameras, you can see things that you could not see with a lidar or a vision camera. It adds more safety to the car at night or in bad conditions, but I think we still need to improve the resolution and the image database.”

Companies like FLIR are trying to push the adoption of thermal imaging in cars, but Mounier said, “we don’t see in the short term a strong demand for night vision in cars.”

The stagnation, or even decline, in the automotive market will be offset by the surging demand for surveillance and thermography systems linked to fever monitoring in airports, hospitals, public areas and warehouses. For thermal imagers, Yole said it expects that more than 1.5 million fever detection cameras will be deployed over the next four years. “There will be a peak this year due to the high demand for passenger screening in airports,” commented Dimitrios Damianos, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. “The rest will be spread out in the next three to four years due to the various infrastructures adopting thermal imaging.”

The deployment will depend geographically on the privacy policies and practices and people’s perception country by country. “We believe that the move to infrared imagers will come quicker in Asia than in the US and in Europe,” said Mounier.

Not only will perception change over time, but two types of technologies can be used. One is a bispectral camera, which has a CMOS imager for normal color pictures and a thermal imager to detect people’s temperature.

“This poses a privacy problem because you take a picture of someone, you identify it with AI or some database and you associate fever with the person,” Damianos explained.

The second option is a single thermal imager, which does not reveal people’s information. “You can detect if a person has a higher temperature without needing to store his or her information.”

To perpetuate thermal imagers, some weaknesses need to be addressed. The temperature accuracy is one of them as thermal imagers detect temperature with a ±2 to 5°C accuracy. “Technically, in the thermal imaging industry, for applications such as thermography or public surveillance, we did not need very good accuracy,” said Damianos. But for fever detection, “you need to be around or below ±0.5°C, and ideally 0.1°C” to avoid letting feverish people through.

Yole also deplores a lack of AI for infrared imaging. “There will be a strong demand for AI in surveillance and, in the future, for transportation,” said Mounier.

Referring to a recent study by Intel examining whether AI can recognize people’s faces using thermal imaging, he said, “we are still in the first steps of using AI, because we don’t have enough images in stock.”

Besides, with thermal imagers, the resolution is too low for face detection. “Most of the demand today for thermal imaging is QVGA [Quarter Video Graphic Array]. We see people’s temperature, but we cannot track them to do face recognition.” For that, AI needs to be implemented. Today, Damianos added, “companies claim that they have AI, but we believe it’s marketing. A pure thermal AI is not there yet.”

As daily temperature checks have become the rule at school and company doors, the demand for thermopile-based thermometers and associated temperature guns have exploded. According to Yole, the thermal detectors market will grow by 20 percent, to $350 million in 2020. This compares with previous forecasts of 10-15 percent, to $320 million this year. “This extra growth comes from extra shipments of thermal detectors for thermometers,” said Damianos. The thermal detector market, which comprises thermopile and pyroelectric technologies, is usually stable.

The idea of integrating thermal imagers in a smartphone is not new. “We heard about that many years ago, and we know that, for instance, Huawei was in contact with a company doing microbolometers to see if there was any point in integrating thermal imagers in smartphones,” Mounier explained. In 2017, Apple came with a 3D capability, and “smartphone makers focused on the development of 3D sensors and forgot about thermal imagers in smartphones.”

Besides, there was no real use case to have a thermal imager in smartphones at the time. The first reason was educational, because “it’s very difficult for people who are not used to seeing thermal images to understand what they see.” People might panic or make assumptions. The second reason was the bulky size of the module and the prize of technology.

The technology is here, and the time is probably right, said Yole. Some thermal detectors or imagers such as FLIR’s Lepton are tiny enough to be integrated into a smartphone. And some smartphones such as the Caterpillar S60, co-developed with FLIR, already integrate a thermal imager, albeit for a more professional use case.

What is needed today is to improve the accuracy — better than 0.5°C — and to have reliable electronics and processing to avoid false alarm, along with maintaining the cost in the range of a few dollars. Cost would inevitably decrease with volume production, benefiting from large wafer scale manufacturing capabilities on 8-inch or 12-inch diameter wafers.

As in all crises, the Covid-19 pandemic will create winners and losers. According to Yole, the companies manufacturing the thermal imagers as well as the optics for the thermal cameras will see their shipments explode, as the demand skyrockets. And there is no risk of production or supply chain bottleneck since China is now up and running and has sufficient capacities to address the huge growth.

Asked if China could benefit from this “fever detection gold rush”, Mounier confirmed he has seen great progress in the microbolometer technology with first products developed and manufactured in-house. “It started a few years ago, and probably the current crisis will speed up the move,” said Mounier. There is indeed a willingness “to have in-house technology in China, and no longer be dependent on external companies like FLIR or Lynred because infrared is linked to security.” Looking one or two years ahead, Mounier said he would not be surprised if Chinese companies such as HIKVision and Iray Technologies had a significant share in infrared cameras.