Development and Evaluation of Bluetooth Low-Energy Device for Electronic Encounter Metrics

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the need for tracking of physical contacts and potential exposure to disease. Traditional contact tracing can be augmented by electronic tools called "electronic contact tracing" or "exposure notification.". Some methods wer...

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Published inJournal of research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Vol. 126; pp. 126043 - 19
Main Authors Keenan, Kathryn E, Aumentado, José, Booth, Harold, Briggman, Kimberly A, Kraft, Mikail, Martin, Michele N, Peralta, René C, Robinson, Angela Y, Shalm, Krister, Stephens, Michelle S, Townsend, Emily A, Nam, Sae Woo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Superintendent of Documents 2021
Subjects
Bluetooth
Contact potentials
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Devices
Disease spread
Exposure
Indoor environments
Nursing homes
Pandemics
Privacy
Schools
Sensors
Signal strength
Smartphones
Viral diseases
COVID
encounter metrics
Bluetooth low energy
BLE
encounter notification
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Summary:The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the need for tracking of physical contacts and potential exposure to disease. Traditional contact tracing can be augmented by electronic tools called "electronic contact tracing" or "exposure notification.". Some methods were built to work with smartphones; however, smartphones are not prevalent in some high-contact areas (e.g., schools and nursing homes). We present the design and initial testing of low-cost, highly privacy preserving wearable exposure notification devices. Several devices were constructed based on existing hardware and operated independently of a smartphone. The method (devices and analyses) was not able to reliably use the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) as a proxy for distance between pairs of devices; the accuracy of RSSI as a proxy for distance decreased dramatically outside of the idealized conditions. However, even an imperfect device could be useful for research on how people use and move through spaces. With some improvement, these devices could be used to understand disease spread and human or animal interaction in indoor environments.
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ISSN:1044-677X
2165-7254
2165-7254
DOI:10.6028/jres.126.043