Social Distancing using Bluetooth Low Energy to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19

Maintaining Social Distancing among people is very crucial at present when the whole world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet there is no effective cure or antidote is available. In this pandemic situation, we need a robust solution to flatten the curve of COVID-19 so that people do not get sick, so our economy and supply chain stays running, and people’s risk can be minimized. Some techniques are available to maintain social distancing, but most are based on visual recognition, which is not effectively applicable everywhere and comparatively expensive. To overcome this issue and make it more effective and smoother, an android application has been developed for the Social Distancing Alert System (SDAS). The system is based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) proximity detection technology, which uses the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Transmission Power (TxPower) of user’s android handsets for the estimation of real-time social distancing status and to alert them. It notifies users through real-time popup notifications on the screen of the handsets and by vibration and notification sound when another app user gets closer to a range of 2 meters with four levels of granularity. This application also provides other compelling features like past social distancing status tracking of the past 30 days, power-saving, and QR scanning to ignore specific people without an internet connection.