One of the most effective measures for containing the transmission of a virus is to identify who an infected person has been in contact and/or crossed paths with, mainly during incubation periods. Aiming to reduce the likelihood of a re-emergence of the pandemic when normal routines resume, Carmetry, a company at the UMH Scientific Park, has developed a new technological tool that makes it possible to prevent and reduce the number of coronavirus cases following the confinement period.

Given the situation deriving from COVID-19, this firm has decided to contribute its resources to help end the epidemiological crisis as soon as possible, and it has offered its assistance to the Generalitat Valenciana, fulfilling its call to the innovation system via GVAInnova.

Curbing infection with big data

The technology proposed by Carmetry is based on artificial intelligence and geolocation, and it consists of the use of a model of three-dimensional variables to analyse, within a spatial and temporal range, the GPS trajectory of an individual who is COVID-19 positive. This algorithm Will make it possible, via a mobile device, to determin which people an infected individual came in contact with during the virus incubation period. At each point of the trajectory of the coronavirus-infected individual, the algorithm considers, in addition to the proximity between both individuals, the length of time of exposure to the virus to estimate the viral load of the infection within a radius, beginning with the initial trajectory and throughout the remaining GPS trajectories.

“The important thing is to crosscheck anonymous data from hundreds of thousands of people, then apply an intelligent algorithm that manages to help the country,” said Arturo Gil and David Úbeda, the founders of Carmetry. As such, this UMH Scientific Park start-up makes the intelligence of its clusters available to the public in order to warn people who have been in contact with infected individuals early on, regardless of whether they know each other or not, and also if their paths simply crossed while buying bread. The technology that makes it posible to track the contagion will be used during the specific period of the pandemic, and then erased, thus maintaining a commitment to data treatment confidentiality. Furthermore, Carmetry’s algorithm has dissociated all personal and medical data, for whose storage hosting such data is not even necessary.

Carmetry is a company specialising in big data and artificial intelligence applied to the automobile and transport sectors. This start-up, led by Arturo Gil and David Úbeda, from the area of Automation and Systems Engineering at the UMH, provides mobility solutions focused on optimising real-time control and management for company vehicles and their drivers.

http://ruvid.org/ri-world/new-algorithm-developed-that-helps-curb-covid-19-infection/