With the number of Corona patients increasing every minute India is about to cross the 5000 mark soon — the virus has also claimed 137 lives till now. It is important to keep track of how and where the disease is spreading and researchers are trying to help the authorities with tech support as much as they can. Dr Kamal Jain, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Roorkee, has developed a unique tracking mobile application which can track individuals and also put geofencing around them — to ensure they don't escape the quarantine. The system will get an alert if geofencing is violated by the quarantined person.

But that's not it, in case GPS data is not received or is unavailable, 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. If the application gets off, an alert will be received immediately. "Geofencing is like a Lakshman Rekha around a quarantined person. If he crosses that at any point an immediate alarm is received at the server," said the professor. “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. This is our small step to supplement government efforts in these testing times,” said Dr Jain.

The surveillance system is a plug and play device and allows tracking with an accuracy of about 5 meters every 2, 10 or 20 seconds. Besides live tracking, the administrator can view the entire movement history of an individual. In case of loss of data, the device sends an alert to the concerned team. Other features of the app include multi-camera support, surveillance magnetic device, halt time and auto camera click on preset time. “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 Dr Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.