The researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) based system that can observe and monitor social distancing in public spaces. The low-cost device is a cyber-physical system that can calculate the distance between individuals. 

The AI-system captures live images of an area via camera and calculates the distance between people as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. If a person is observed in violation of the social distancing norm, the hardware device will sound a proximity alarm.

So that the innovation can help governments implement social distancing in rural and remote places too, the researchers focused on bringing down the costs of the innovation and the ease of deployment. 

The innovation was carried out under the tutelage of professors Debashish Chakravarty and Aditya Bandopadhyay by a team of students while being under the lockdown. A successful trial has been carried out with three prototypes of the device within the IIT-Kharagpur campus.