We are still in the midst of a global pandemic with no vaccine, medicine and at this point, only preventive strategies can save lives and prevent further cost for companies recovering to get their business operations back to work.  This situation causes a high demand for viable solutions that can aid in effectively pre-screen people and detect if they could have elevated body temperature.

If we can protect our customers and their employees with reliable technology we add tremendous value to our customer's operations and help create and maintain a safer environment for their customers and these customer’s employees.

THERMAL CAMERAS

The first tool of choice for all of us in the IP Camera space has always been a thermal radiometry camera. In many situations, the higher precision and higher accuracy cameras with a finer temperature granularity will be excellent tools for human screeners to pre-screen and are with people traffic.

MOBOTIX has one of the best cameras in this space and produces a unit that not only has excellent temperature granularity and can be optimized for the normal Human Body Temperature's range. 

While Mobotix thermal cameras are great for pre-screening wider spaces and groups of people, it’s important to be aware that this solution is a tool to be used to help find outliers but not always able to determine the true body temperature of people by itself. Therefore, thermal cameras, in general, are not an adequate tool by themselves to determine if someone has a fever or not. For that final confirmation after the pre-screen customers should use a proper medical tool designed for fever detection with FDA approval. 

SETTINGS AND USE CASES

Most thermal camera use cases will be pre-screening with a human assistant that may be a security guard or a nurse using a thermal camera to look at people, i.e. coming to work in the morning and to scan for outliers in such a group. They will do this by looking for people that have a higher body temperature than the majority of the group that then need to go through a second screening. 

PRE-SCREENING LARGER GROUPS

Thermal cameras are very exactly measuring the radiated surface temperature, however, this temperature varies in humans intrinsically depending on the time of the day and externally depending on outdoor temperature, weather, air conditioning, air draft, and many other circumstances. This is the reason thermal cameras are mainly used as pre-screening tools and then potential positives will be tested with a precise medical device.

UNIQUE CUSTOM PRE-SCREENING SCENARIOS WITH THERMAL CAMERAS

As difficult as it is, to get an exact body temperature from moving people some companies have special requirements and special physical settings that they want to build their own solutions for. 

The closer we can get to people, the more stationary the better the solutions. MOBOTIX thermal cameras being intelligent decentralized computers with thermal sensors empower integrators and customers to design very specific and unique solutions for their particular environments, allowing users to accomplish a pre-screening practice that is well accommodating to that business’s workflow and special environment. As long as everyone is conscious that we are talking about pre-screening and the thermal camera protection is only one aspect of the preventive measures put in place, it will be an effective and valuable aspect in the protection against viruses that are being spread by people showing elevated body temperatures.

MOBOTIX cameras are very durable and the solution will last for many years helping not only during this hopefully soon ending pandemic but can also protect the company against the flu and other symptomatic diseases that raise people's body temperature. The hardware is only the first part of any solution. The real value is provided by the integrator that understands the customers true environment, situation and workflow. Training, Software and Service are what will form the final solution and ensure it becomes a success.  

MOBOTIX cameras are the intelligent choice, as they are able to detect atmospheric temperatures to proactively update camera settings and control thermal temperature display ranges to mask out temperatures that are not relevant. Moreover, the camera allows us to define the sensitivity of the thermal sensor and combine it with logic events to develop a solution that is extremely flexible and capable! 

One interesting setup for MOBOTIX cameras in a somewhat smaller environment can be to have the camera send alerts to HR staff or management with video clips of anyone that triggered a high body temperature. In a smaller organization, it is easier to identify the people from watching event snapshots and videoclips and someone in HR can go to the affected person to use an FDA approved fever measuring thermometer and in case of elevated temperature or fever to go home.

For this size of companies and setup, we created a novel cloud-based solution EBT-AlertReady™ based on MxLINQ Cloud. This solution is a Free BETA at this time and will send SMS alerts and video clips remotely to a small assigned group of people (HR, Manager, Executive, etc.) at the company that will go to anyone identified by the system as possibly having a higher body temperature than normal and screen these individually. 

OTHER THERMAL SOLUTIONS

In smaller organizations, there might not be a budget for thermal cameras, and it's impossible to have human supervision of the entrance areas at all times.

SMALLER ENVIRONMENTS WITH FEWER PEOPLE

Small companies can use handheld thermal forehead thermometers and create a protocol for voluntary prescreening in an area supervised by a security guard or receptionist to ensure a minimum level of compliance.  Such a setup would require at least two people at the entrance area at any given point in time. In a smaller environment with only a few people in and out it may be impossible to create a screening culture and enforce a pre-screen habit to have any viable level of protection. 

DEDICATED THERMAL PRE-SCREENING SENSORS

We were recently introduced to a new intelligent AI-based sensor solution that allows for one by one scanning by KENTIX. Their new KENTIX SmartXcan is perfect for smaller spaces and smaller groups that would never consider a thermal camera solution. However, it surely can be used for larger groups, too, if the organization is willing to use more than one module per entrance. The KENTIX told us that they measured that the SmartXcan takes less than 5 seconds with a 6 feet distance between 2 people.

KENTIX is a German manufacturer specializing in environmental sensors to protect critical infrastructure.  KENTIX sensors are decentralized IP technology devices allowing for multiple integration levels, e.g. stand-alone, integrated into the local IP network or by connecting it to cloud services for regional or international hot-spot analysis.

Just recently KENTIX upgraded their MultiSensor that included a passive Infrared detector to a highly precise infrared grid sensor with an approximately 30 x 30 matrix of highly accurate thermal sensors. These sensors were mainly being used to count people in a room when an intrusion was detected or to help identify which rack had overheating equipment when the ultrasensitive CO (Carbon Monoxide) sensor gave a potential early fire warning. KENTIX has proven highly effective for detecting smoldering issues long before humans could detect these.

In light of the coronavirus crisis, the KENTIX team, which already had experience building access control solutions, took the initiative to build a dedicated Elevated Body Temperature screening device. The advantages of this screening device are that it is a custom-built dedicated solution that can be mounted at entrances next to the normal access control equipment and be used as a clean and safe self-screening device that will audibly and visually notify the user of his status and or can optionally be coupled with most existing access control solutions to deny access unless the user provides positive proof of normal body temperature.

A DEDICATED COMPLETE SYSTEM

The KENTIX SmartXcan Sensor is supplied as a complete set. Wall bracket, mounting material, and covers are included in the delivery. For commissioning, only a network connection with Power over Ethernet (PoE) is required. Via the network connection and the integrated HTTPS web server, the device can be accessed at any time by PC, tablet or smartphone. Configuration changes or updates can thus be carried out easily. The administration of several devices, including the distribution of the configuration, is also possible without any problems.

The most interesting aspect of the KENTIX solution is that it actually recognizes the eyes and cantus area and measures at always the same exact distance of around 2 feet with a TOF distance sensor and is extremely precise. 

KENTIX sensor is very new but from what we have seen it is extremely well designed and looks like it is one of the best if not the best screening solutions in the market today. One thing is for sure, it is the only automated process controlled solution on the market, today.

Our US Distribution Channel, ABP has been selling KENTIX for the last 2-3 years and found the products to be durable, well designed and to exceed our expectations. We have worked with the ABP team to make KENTIX sensors and IoT modules interoperable and monitor them over our remote monitoring and management platform. The new KENTIX SmartXcan unit will also be remotely configurable and manageable with our IPTECHVIEW / MxMSP platform.

The entire KENTIX line is very interesting, with this new unique scanner being very relevant as the country comes off social distancing and we all want to protect as many people as possible.  Take a look at these videos to get a closer insight into this very interesting solution:

- Kentix Partner webinar https://vimeo.com/402852519/08aea47181

- Explanatory video https://youtu.be/aLrJHa_doMQ

- LIVE Test - how long does it take to scan 10 people? https://youtu.be/iQdKECmLTWg

For pricing and model details check out the Partner Starter Kits from ABP Technolgy, our US Channel Distribution Partner.

For more details on the EBT look and feel as well as workflow, please peruse the EBT Quickguide.