The Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) has developed a tracking software for COVID-19 patients called Smart Automated Management of Patients and Risks (SAMPARC) in partnership with the DRDO Young Scientists Labs (DYSL). According to the special report by Manorama Online, a team of 20 scientists have worked on SAMPARC in Bangalore and came up with the solution in three weeks. 

SAMPARC is a combination of software and phone app that has been developed for state authorities to effectively track COVID-19 patients via an app that would be installed on their smartphones. The app was first launched in Uttar Pradesh in early April. SAMPARC is meant only for tracking and not for contact tracing. After a successful roll-out in Uttar Pradesh, the software was rolled out in Maharashtra and Nagaland too.

The system would enable geo-fencing a COVID-19 patient by creating a virtual boundary restricting the patient’s movement. SAMPARC alerts the authorities via a pre-programmed action when the patient’s mobile device or RFID tag enters or exits this virtual boundary. The software also has AI-based automated face recognition and the capability to display the information to the state officials on a map which can be colour-coded to depict hotspots and containment zones.

Colour red would alert the authorities that the patient has violated geo-fencing or hasn’t uploaded accurate selfie, colour blue would indicate that their phones have stopped sending periodic updates and colour green would mean that everything is satisfactory. 

Based on the inputs received from UP, Maharashtra and Nagaland, the team has already started working on incorporating changes and additions to the software which will be rolled out soon to states such as Maharashtra, where the number of COVID-19 cases has shot up. “Once the period of quarantine or isolation is over, the patients can uninstall the app from their smartphones,” clarified the official. 

The SAMPARC software will enable officials to track violators and perform random checks on COVID-19 quarantined patients. It is expected to drastically reduce the overhead of tracking patients under home isolation, thereby enabling the state resources to be diverted to more important areas.