AI checks for masks and social distancing. Belgium’s railways are testing smart cameras with sensors to ensure its workers wear masks and maintain their distance to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
From next week, so-called intelligent cameras will be installed in five strategic points in the offices of Belgian rail infrastructure operator Infrabel, where technicians would normally come together, such as the cafeteria. A warning will sound if people are too numerous, do not have a face mask or get too close.
Using AI software available online, Infrabel said it had developed a way to interpret camera images for the purpose of COVID-19 protection, using the technology to calculate if workers are too close or wearing a face mask.
In a demonstration, staff seen on camera were shown on a giant screen as stick figures whose distance apart could be measured in metres. On another screen, a camera detected if a worker entering a room was wearing a mask.
The company, which has 11,000 employees, said it had already been working on ways to use sensors to protect technicians working on the Belgian railways by placing cameras on helmets that would alert staff in an accident.
That know-how was reappraised to fight coronavirus.