IO, Surabaya Indonesia has been declared the Southeast Asian country with the highest number of Covid-19 fatalities. This fact motivated the duet of the student team from the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Department of Computer Engineering at the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, Surabaya, to develop an I-Mask innovation intended to impede the transmission of Covid-19.
The I-Mask team, Rahmadilla Primasiwi Nugraha, Ilul Rohman, and Hartandi Wisnumukti from the Department of Electrical Engineering, as well as Irfan Dhiarinda Hamdi and Rizqullah Fadhil Rafi from the Computer Engineering Department, initiated a mask detection system using Machine Learning and integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor the use of masks in a given environment.
Rahmadilla Primasiwi Nugraha, the team leader who is familiarly called Dilla, revealed that the number of positive cases of Covid-19 in Indonesia is still very high. Therefore, the use of a mask is very important because it can stop you from spreading the virus. However, the awareness of the Indonesian people in wearing masks is only around 59.32 percent. “This figure is quite small, so the idea emerged to initiate this I-Mask, as an effort to raise public awareness,” she said, in a release received by the Independent Observer, Friday (28/5/2021).
According to Dilla, this I-Mask was designed to minimize the transmission of Covid-19, support the implementation of the “new normal”, as well as reminding us of the importance of using masks. In addition, I-Mask can also bolster government efforts in monitoring the use of masks in an enclosed space.
The way I-Mask works begins with the process of detecting whether the person is wearing a mask or not. This detection video will be sent to a cloud server that is integrated with an application so that people who are not wearing masks will be alerted; they cannot enter a space that is designed to be integrated with an automatic door. “So the door only opens for those who wear masks and an alarm sounds for those who are detected not wearing masks,” said the student from Malang.
Interestingly, the I-Mask application has several features that provide information about the condition of a place, starting from the number of visitors, weekly reports on the number of visitors, the location of the I-Mask system installed, live updates from camera shots, to statistical data showing the condition of the place. “In this way, visitors will know whether the place has met health protocol standards or not.”
Dilla added that the I-Mask made by her team can have various advantages, namely, making it easier to monitor the use of masks in a place, having cheap production and maintenance costs, a 24-hour system operating time so that monitoring data is real-time, space-saving, and very practical. “These various advantages make the I-Mask different from other similar innovations,” said this 2018 class student.
The hard work of the I-Mask team has resulted in proud achievements. The innovation entitled “I-Mask: Mask Detection System using Ma- chine Learning and Integrated with IoT for Monitoring the Use of Masks in a Place” successfully led the team guided by Arief Kurniawan to be- come first-place winner in the 2021 International IoT Challenge at the Sebelas Maret University Surakarta, May 23. The I-Mask team eliminated 79 other innovations from around the world while outperforming King Mongkuts Institute of Technology Ladkrabang from Thailand who was crowned as the second-place winner.
In the future, this alumnus of State High School 1 Malang hopes that the I-Mask made by her team can be further developed so that this innovation can be perfected and pro- duced to help the country. “Hopeful- ly, this tool can be useful for the wid- er community in reducing the spread of Covid-19 and giving them a sense of security in the new normal life,” she concluded. (est)