Unmanned mobile multipurpose monitoring system-iMonitor

Abstract

Many available intelligent monitoring devices and applications only perform passive monitoring of the environment and notify the user when events occur, lacking the integration of viable technologies. In this work, we propose a multipurpose monitoring device that integrates cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile applications to implement an unmanned mobile monitoring system for real-time monitoring and manipulation. The proposed system utilizes a self-balancing car as a stabilizing vehicle and a micro video camera that records images for AI facial tracking and recognition, combined with an infrared thermal imager to obtain forehead temperature. The recognized results are sent to a mobile device via a live video stream. The video stream can be recorded and images can be captured through a mobile application and uploaded to a cloud storage for playback and examination later. If the streamed video lacks sufficient illumination and cannot be viewed clearly, the system can be switched to infrared thermography to capture thermal images for monitoring the environment. The system can also be used as a mobile body temperature detector for the detection of abnormal body temperatures at a border control for quarantine inspections during the outbreak of contagious diseases. Furthermore, the system is equipped with four gas sensors to detect up to 12 different kinds of gaseous substances or particulate matter so that the user can be aware of the environmental quality around the self-balancing car. The outcome of this work can be applied to public health monitoring, dynamic crowd monitoring at airports and harbors, and the monitoring of hazardous or disaster-affected locations for search and rescue to reduce the costs associated with manual monitoring and the risk of exposure to hazards.