Sensing illness

Your challenge: Design of a new sensor system to detect passengers who may be carrying a dangerous disease.

What’s the story?

You are the Senior Design Engineer at a company called Remote Sensomatic Ltd. Your company is known worldwide for its expertise in designing and building medical sensors.

Due to concerns about the potential for diseases like avian flue to create a pandemic amongst humans the World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised that all international airports and other border transit points should be equipped with sensors to detect people with the early stages of infectious diseases.

They have just issued a competition for the development of these sensors and your company would like to put in an application. The main points of the design brief are:

  • The sensor system must not slow down the flow of people
  • The sensor system must include a means of identifying the people that have checked positive for possible illness so that they can be stopped and further tests can be carried out if necessary
  • The sensors must not be invasive, no taking of blood or any tissue is permitted
  • The sensors must not be obvious to the travellers.

As the Senior Design Engineer it is your job to come up with an engineering solution which your company can put forward to the WHO.

Illness sensors?

When people get ill they will start to show certain symptoms. These symptoms could be any of the following:

  • High temperature
  • Sweating
  • Coughing
  • Sneezing
  • Development of boils or lesions

There are many more to choose from and the exact combination of symptoms will depend on exactly what illness you are unlucky enough to have picked up.

Feeling unwell can also affect the way you walk, the way you deal with simple tasks or the way you communicate with other people.

In Canada in 2003, during the SARS outbreak, thermal imaging cameras were installed at airports to detect people who may have had a fever, which could be due to SARS infection.

Sensors already exist which have been designed to identify various biological agents such as bacteria, viruses and toxins. The sensors can detect and classify these biological agents within minutes. However, these sensors have been mostly designed for military and security applications and, as such, are meant to react to high concentrations. It is not known how reliably they might respond to the low concentrations resulting from one infected person.

With the capabilities of today’s computer systems and the range of sensors available, producing such a device may be a task of fitting the right pieces of existing technology together.

What you need to do

Once you have designed your system, produce a video (max. five minutes) to showcase your design. There is no right or wrong way to do this. You can use any props you want or just do a talking head. You should:

  • Explain why such a sensor system is necessary.
  • Explain what symptoms your system is going to look for.
  • Explain how your system is going to recognise these symptoms and what sensors it is going to use.
  • Explain how your system will keep track of individuals so that possibly infected people can be stopped to undergo more tests.

Want to make sure you get your point across? Have a look at our Presentation tips.

Here are some questions to get you started…

  • Which symptoms do you think will be the most easy to sense?
  • Which symptoms do you think will be the most useful to sense?
  • What sensors exist that you might be able to use?
  • How can you keep track of people as they walk through your system of sensors?
  • Will it be better to have a doorframe type system for people to walk through (like airport metal detectors) or would it be better for the sensors to be more spread out?
  • Is there any way that such a system could deal with someone who could be carrying a disease, but showing no visible signs?

Want more information? Check out these links…

On this site:

On the internet:

How will your entry be judged?

To really impress the judges your entry has to meet three equally weighted criteria:

  • Engage! You have to communicate with your audience in an exciting and engaging fashion
  • Understand! You must show that you understand the science behind the challenge and your solution
  • Solve! You need to offer a solution to the problem you have been presented. The more innovative and interesting your approach the better!

Submitting your challenge video

Upload your challenge video now, using the IET Faraday Video Wizard.

Closing date for submitting your entries is the 14th December. Don’t forget to read the terms and conditions before you enter.

If the judges choose your video as one of the 4 regional winners, your winning team will be invited to take part in the filming of 4 ‘Faraday returns’ videos with leading scientists and engineers. Filming will take place in January, please therefore ensure that your team is available during this period.