As society begins to move away from COVID-19 lockdown to whatever our new normal looks like, information will be critical to ensure the safety of individuals who cautiously venture outside.

For Enzo Jia, CEO and co-founder of Longan Vision, it represents a perfect opportunity to use technology they had been working on in a new, important way.

Jia, a McMaster University Mechanical Engineering grad, and a group of fellow grads and students had been developing thermal imaging AR (augmented reality) headsets for use by firefighters. With a global pandemic sweeping the globe, they have pivoted to help.

The system, called Gatekeeper, is currently being tested at the front entrance to the Nations store in Jackson Square. This is how it works: Since a thermal imaging camera cannot measure temperature itself, Gatekeeper uses two cameras. One camera is set to monitor the calibrated temperature of an area, say, 37 C. The other camera, a thermal imaging unit, scans individuals that cross its path. Information gathered from the two cameras is sent to a computer, which looks for variances between the two.

As customers enter the store, if no temperature abnormality is detected, the computer screen provides the viewer with a green screen and a checkmark, indicating all is good. If a person enters and exhibits a higher than normal temperature, the computer screen turns red to warn of a potential concern which can be acted upon by store personnel monitoring.

Jia sees an opportunity to expand this kind of testing more broadly, noting it is able to scan in higher number and faster than individual forehead scanning.

The testing at Nations will last one month, as the team looks to refine the technology.