Internet of Things for Current COVID-19 and Future Pandemics: an Exploratory Study

Abstract

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained convincing research ground as a new research topic in a wide variety of academic and industrial disciplines, especially in healthcare. The IoT revolution is reshaping modern healthcare systems by incorporating technological, economic, and social prospects. It is evolving healthcare systems from conventional to more personalized healthcare systems through which patients can be diagnosed, treated, and monitored more easily. The current global challenge of the pandemic caused by the novel severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 presents the greatest global public health crisis since the pandemic influenza outbreak of 1918. At the time this paper was written, the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases around the world had reached more than 31 million. Since the pandemic started, there has been a rapid effort in different research communities to exploit a wide variety of technologies to combat this worldwide threat, and IoT technology is one of the pioneers in this area. In the context of COVID-19, IoT-enabled/linked devices/applications are utilized to lower the possible spread of COVID-19 to others by early diagnosis, monitoring patients, and practicing defined protocols after patient recovery. This paper surveys the role of IoT-based technologies in COVID-19 and reviews the state-of-the-art architectures, platforms, applications, and industrial IoT-based solutions combating COVID-19 in three main phases, including early diagnosis, quarantine time, and after recovery.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Healthcare; Industrial IoT; Infectious disease; Internet of things; IoT; Medical IoT; Pandemic.

Fig. 1

Wearable smart thermometers [32]

Fig. 2

Smart helmet captures temperatures using thermal and optical camera [33]

Fig. 3

Smart glasses temperature capturing [34]

Fig. 4

Vuzix smart glass [94]

Fig. 5

Thermal imaging drone [99]

Fig. 6

Autonomous swab test robots [111]

Fig. 7

Wanda QuickTouch IoT button [119]

Fig. 8

IoT-Q-Band workplace classification [35]

Fig. 9

Disinfectant drone [96]

Fig. 10

Medical drone transferring medical related [96]

Fig. 11

DaVinci telerobot can prevent close contact between surgeon and patient during a surgery [137]

Fig. 12

Human-operated collaborative robots [139]

Fig. 13

XDBOT collaborative robot operating by humans for disinfecting contaminated areas [138]

Fig. 14

Xenex disinfecting autonomous robots [140]

Fig. 15

Paro social robot can prevent mental effects of quarantine [53]

Fig. 16

EasyBand process of tracking with its designed rules [36]

Fig. 17

Pact wristband for alerting and tracing [89]

Fig. 18

Use of TraceTag on a hard hat [37]

Fig. 19

Instant Trace worn as badge [37]

Fig. 20

Surveillance drone [155]

Fig. 21

Announcement drone [96]

Fig. 22

All facilities at once, multipurpose drone [96]

Fig. 23

“Spot” social distancing robot [158]