COVID-19: Naval Dockyard in Mumbai designs low-cost temperature sensors

The Naval Dockyard in Mumbai has designed and developed its own handheld IR-based temperature sensor for undertaking screening of large numbers of personnel at the entry gates of the yard reducing the load on the security sentries at the gate. The instrument has been manufactured under Rs 1,000 through in-house resources, which is a fraction of the cost of the temperature guns in the market.

"The ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 has led to one of the biggest medical emergencies the world has witnessed in recent times. In view of the massive surge in the number of infected patients, the medical infrastructure of the nation is being put to its ultimate test," official sources said.

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The 285-year-old Naval Dockyard (ND) of Western Naval Command (WNC) has an average influx of around 20,000 personnel entering its premises every day.

In view of COVID-19, initial screening of these personnel entering the dockyard was essential to prevent the spread of the deadly viral infection within the yard and the Western Fleet.

The most preliminary method to screen a probable patient is to check for body temperature by a non-contact means.

Since the outbreak, the non-contact thermometers or temperature guns have become scarce in the market and are being sold at a very high cost.
To overcome the scarcity and requirement of large numbers, the Naval Dockyard has designed and developed its own handheld IR-based temperature sensor with accuracy of 0.02 deg Celsius.

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The non-contact thermometer has an Infrared sensor and an LED display integrated with a microcontroller which runs on a 9V battery. This initiative has provided a tool for undertaking the screening of a large number of personnel at the entry gates of the yard thereby reducing the load on the security sentries at the gate.

With the manufacturing cost of less than Rs 1,000, the dockyard has the capability to scale up production of these, if required, towards which sourcing of the components is in progress, the officials said.