DJI Matrice 210 checks body temperature at hospital in Javits Center

Today, we learn that a DJI Matrice 210 with a Zenmuse XT2 Dual thermal camera is being used at the entrance of the makeshift hospital in the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

According to the Washington Post:

“A drone with an infrared sensor perched on the entry desk like a robotic raven taking people's temperatures. In Nanjing, China, the government sent a similar drone flying apartment to apartment to ferret out the sick. Here, if someone “pops hot,” as one soldier said, they'll be descended upon by medics and rushed to an isolation tent. Every visitor cleared to enter is also issued protective gear, including a face mask.”

DJI's Senior Director of Public Safety Integration, Romeo Durscher provided some more background in a post on Facebook. Durscher said:

In the beginning of this Washington Post article it talks about this drone at the entrance of the Javits Convention Center in New York, now a 3,000 bed field hospital, scanning all staff upon entering. This drone is one from our DJI Disaster Relief Program and it is being used in a different way; stationary.
This Matrice 210 with a DJI/FLIR thermal camera gets calibrated several times to check for body-temperature of staff entering the center. This is one of several screening tools, as hand-held temperature measurement devices are on backorder.

This is what I admire about public safety; their ability to take a tool and find new and working use-cases for it. Just like over 5 years ago, when I started seeing this with drones; public safety took the “toy” drones at the time and started finding ways to use them for ways we never thought of. And today drones have become this new tool helping in many new, creative and efficient ways.

I truly believe, thanks to our Disaster Relief Program supporting over 40 agencies across the US, and the ingenuity of fire, law enforcement, EMS and others, we will see even more new use-cases come to life.

This is #DronesForGood

Photos: Romeo Durscher