Patent Application
20250025107
The present application claims the benefit of an earlier filing date and right of priority to Application No. KR 10-2023-0092832 filed on 18 Jul. 2023 in Korea, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure relates to technology for preventing infectious diseases and the spread of the infectious diseases, and relates to a method for determining whether there is contact between user equipment (UE) users based on similarity of signals received from the user equipment (UE) and an apparatus thereof.
Recently, with the development of transportation methods and the increase in trade between countries, the need for a national infectious disease management model is emerging due to the frequent occurrence of new infectious diseases transmitted through human-to-human contact.
In particular, coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a new type of coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) that has spread throughout China and the world since it first occurred in Wuhan, China, as it is spread through droplets produced when coughing or sneezing, it is very important to identify the movement routes of confirmed patients and block further transmission.
Currently, a method of manually writing a guest book is being used or creating an electronic access register using QR codes is being used to track and manage infectious disease patients. However, this conventional method is not effective enough in an environment where specific personnel reside and move frequently. For example, medical and nursing institutions, public institutions, and other facilities use wireless signals to measure the movement routes of specific individuals in real time or at short time intervals when necessary, and collect and store them in a database. Contacts can be determined by comparing each individual's movement routes by time stored in the database, but since the search volume increases in proportion to the number of registered people and time, there is a problem that efficiency is greatly reduced when processing big data. Additionally, a huge amount of data places a large load on the system, making it difficult to expect fast processing results and accuracy.
In addition, there are various prior technologies that disclose individual movement route tracking technology based on conventional location information, but in identifying the movement routes of individuals who have been in contact with infectious disease patients during the outbreak of an infectious disease, as problems arise with the use of personal information called location information, improvement measures are needed.
The technical problem to be solved by the embodiments of the present disclosure aims to overcome problems related to personal information generated through the use of personal location information in verifying personal contact with a patient with an infectious disease. In addition, the purpose is to increase the accuracy of contact judgment by processing only data from various wireless signals such as WiFi, Bluetooth, LTE, and 5G received from the user's device, and to contribute to preventing the spread of infectious diseases and preventing it in advance by increasing the efficiency of data processing and making it easier to extract contact information.
In order to solve the above technical problem, a method for contact verification based on signal similarity according to an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises receiving and storing spatiotemporal signal information capable of specifying time and space from a plurality of user equipments (UEs) by an apparatus of contact verification; extracting spatiotemporal signal information of a specific user among the stored spatiotemporal signal information by the apparatus of contact verification; configuring the extracted spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user as reference spatiotemporal signal information, and comparing similarity between the reference spatiotemporal signal information and the other stored spatiotemporal signal information by the apparatus of contact verification; and determining whether or not there is contact between the specific user and another user based on the similarity by the apparatus of contact verification.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the spatiotemporal signal information may be temporal and spatial fingerprints (TSF) that is continuously measured over a certain period of time from at least one sensor in the user equipment (UE), and indicates space state information over time, and the TSF may include a signal type of the spatiotemporal signal information measured through the user equipment (UE), signal strength according to the signal type, and a timestamp indicating information about a time at which the signal type and the signal strength were measured.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the TSF may further include a state value of an environment indicating changes in the environment, and the state value of the environment may be at least one or a combination of a characteristic value of atmospheric pressure according to changes in atmospheric pressure in a space where the user stayed, a characteristic value of sound according to changes in sound in the space, and a characteristic value of temperature according to temperature changes in the space.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the receiving and storing spatiotemporal signal information may be matching a user equipment (UE) identifier with the spatiotemporal signal information and storing it.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the extracting spatiotemporal signal information of a specific user may be selecting spatiotemporal signal information corresponding to the spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user from a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information when the specific user is determined to be infected.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the comparing similarity may include performing a first similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having timestamp information similar to timestamp information of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information; performing a second similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a signal type and signal strength similar to a signal type and signal strength of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the first similarity test; and performing a third similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a state value of an environment similar to a state value of an environment of the reference spatiotemporal signal information, when it contains environmental state values indicating changes in the environment, among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the second similarity test.
In a method for contact verification according to one embodiment, the determining whether or not there is contact may be verifying a user equipment (UE) identifier that measured spatiotemporal signal information similar to the reference spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user, and classifying the user as a contact or non-contact.
Furthermore, the following provides a computer-readable recording medium that records a program for executing the method for contact verification described above on a computer.
In order to solve the above technical problem, an apparatus of contact verification based on signal similarity according to an embodiment of the present disclosure comprises a communication module configured to receive spatiotemporal signal information from a plurality of user equipments (UEs); and a processor configured to store the spatiotemporal signal information, extract the spatiotemporal signal information of a specific user among the stored spatiotemporal signal information, configure the extracted spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user as reference spatiotemporal signal information, and compare similarity between the reference spatiotemporal signal information and the other stored spatiotemporal signal information, and determine whether or not there is contact between the specific user and another user based on the similarity.
In an apparatus of contact verification according to one embodiment, the processor may match a user equipment (UE) identifier with the spatiotemporal signal information and store it, the spatiotemporal signal information may be temporal and spatial fingerprints (TSF) that is continuously measured over a certain period of time from at least one sensor in the user equipment (UE), and indicates space state information over time, and the TSF may include a signal type of the spatiotemporal signal information measured through the user equipment (UE), signal strength according to the signal type, and a timestamp indicating information about a time at which the signal type and the signal strength were measured.
In an apparatus of contact verification according to one embodiment, the processor may select spatiotemporal signal information corresponding to the spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user from a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information when the specific user is determined to be infected.
In an apparatus of contact verification according to one embodiment, the processor may perform a first similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having timestamp information similar to timestamp information of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information, perform a second similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a signal type and signal strength similar to a signal type and signal strength of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the first similarity test, and perform a third similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a state value of an environment similar to a state value of an environment of the reference spatiotemporal signal information, when it contains environmental status values that indicate changes in the environment, among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the second similarity test.
In an apparatus of contact verification according to one embodiment, the processor may verify a user equipment (UE) identifier that measured spatiotemporal signal information similar to the reference spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user, and classify the user as a contact or non-contact.
In an apparatus of contact verification according to one embodiment, the processor may transmit an infectious disease testing recommendation message to infected people depending on whether or not there is the determined contact.
According to the embodiments of the present disclosure described above, a technology for identifying the user's movement routes was proposed by comparing the similarity between signals received from the user equipment (UE). The proposed technology does not use the user's location information at all because it only compares the similarity of the signals themselves. As a result, it is free from privacy infringement issues that arise when determining whether or not there is contact between a user and an infectious disease patient. In addition, it is economical because there is no need to use resources to calculate location information, and it is easy to extract contact information, enabling rapid response to the spread of infectious diseases.
Before describing embodiments of the present disclosure in detail, it is introduced that the goals that appear in the field of technology for preventing contagious diseases or infectious diseases and preventing the spread of contagious diseases or infectious diseases in which the embodiments of the present disclosure are implemented and the technical means and configurations that can be considered to solve these goals.
Since coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) broke out in December 2019 and spread around the world, many studies have been conducted to prevent and prevent in advance the spread of infectious diseases. Typically, there are many technologies and studies that track the movement routes and contacts of infected people with infectious diseases. For example, obtaining personal ID (identifier) information of a personal user equipment (UE) carried by an individual using a plurality of identification information scanners installed in a plurality of places, respectively, and storing the time information and location information at which positioning of the personal ID information is made, through this, there is technology to trace infected people and their contacts. In addition, it has emerged the technology for collecting information on all close contacts at risk of infection within a specific facility by building an Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensor network within a specific facility, and tracking even the possibility of infection by deploying fixed Internet of Things sensors in areas at risk of infection in addition to mobile Internet of Things sensors.
However, all of the above-described technologies continuously store data estimating the locations of all personnel, so complex calculations are required and high costs may occur. In addition, if an infected person occurs later, a problem arises in using location information in determining whether or not there has been contact with personnel whose movement routes overlap with the infected person. User location information is a very important personal information issue, according to the Location Information Act, it is divided into “location information” and “personal location information” and their legal treatment is different, since the concept of “location information” is also defined very comprehensively, ultimately, using location information can cause various problems because it is information that is more closely related to an individual's human rights than to individual identification.
The contact verification technology based on signal similarity described in the present disclosure does not use any information and data related to location in determining whether an individual has been in contact with an infected person carrying an infectious disease. Therefore, the contact verification technology is relatively free from privacy issues compared to the technologies described above, and has the advantage of being able to be implemented at low cost by comparing signal similarity and testing only when an infected person is identified.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, detailed descriptions of known functions or configurations that may obscure the gist of the embodiments are omitted in the following description and attached drawings. In addition, throughout the specification, ‘including’ a certain component does not mean excluding other components unless specifically stated to the contrary, but rather means that other components may be further included.
Additionally, terms such as first, second, etc. may be used to describe various components, but the components should not be limited by the above terms. The above terms may be used for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another component. For example, a first component may be referred to as a second component without departing from the scope of the present disclosure, and similarly, the second component may also be referred to as the first component.
The terms used in the present disclosure are only used to describe specific embodiments and are not intended to limit the present disclosure. Singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. In the present disclosure, terms such as “comprise” or “include” are intended to designate the presence of described features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, or combinations thereof, and it should be understood that this does not exclude in advance the presence or addition of one or more other features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, or combinations thereof.
Unless specifically defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as generally understood by a person of ordinary skill in the technical field to which the present disclosure pertains. Terms such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries should be interpreted as having a meaning consistent with the meaning in the context of the related technology, and unless clearly defined in the present disclosure, should not be interpreted in an idealized or excessively formal meaning.
In step S110, an apparatus of contact verification receives and stores spatiotemporal signal information capable of specifying time and space from a plurality of user equipments (UEs). In this process, it may match and store a user equipment (UE) identifier with the spatiotemporal signal information. At this time, the user equipment (UE) is not limited to the user's mobile communication user equipment (UE) but may include the user's wearable device capable of wireless communication.
In step S130, the apparatus of contact verification extracts the spatiotemporal signal information of a specific user among the stored spatiotemporal signal information. In this process, when the specific user is determined to be infected, it may select spatiotemporal signal information corresponding to the spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user from a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information
In step S150, the apparatus of contact verification configures the extracted spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user as reference spatiotemporal signal information, and compares similarity between the reference spatiotemporal signal information and the other stored spatiotemporal signal information. In this process, it may perform a first similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having timestamp information similar to timestamp information of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information, perform a second similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a signal type and signal strength similar to a signal type and signal strength of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the first similarity test, and perform a third similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a state value of an environment similar to a state value of an environment of the reference spatiotemporal signal information, when it contains environmental status values that indicate changes in the environment, among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the second similarity test. At this time, the similarity can be interpreted as correlation, and in the method of comparing the similarity, likelihood can be used as the correlation coefficient, which is an indicator of how a change in one of two variables occurs in response to a change in the other variable, and a measure that can evaluate several possible hypotheses based on the results shown.
In step S170, the apparatus of contact verification determine whether or not there is contact between the specific user and another user based on the similarity. In this process, it may verify a user equipment (UE) identifier that measured spatiotemporal signal information similar to the reference spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user, and classify the user as a contact or non-contact.
The spatiotemporal signal information will be described in detail below with reference to
Regarding (A) of
Regarding (B) of
Regarding (C) of
Depending on the type of the spatiotemporal signal information described above, it can be easy to specify spatiotemporal signal information by varying the storage items in consideration of the characteristics of each signal information. In addition, as the storage items vary depending on the type of the spatiotemporal signal information, there is no need to fully scan all data in the table where the spatiotemporal signal information is stored, and it is possible to quickly determine whether users have been in contact with an infected person.
The measurement value of the change in the atmospheric pressure is one of state values of space and can be measured through an atmospheric pressure sensor built into the user equipment (UE). At this time, the atmospheric pressure sensor may be at least one of a GPS altimeter, a location-based altimeter, and an atmospheric pressure altimeter, or a combination thereof. There are various factors that can change the atmospheric pressure in space. For example, factors may be whether a heater is running, how hard a door is opened when an individual enters or exits the room, and whether there is ventilation, but are not limited to this, and may include various variable factors that can be measured while changing atmospheric pressure.
Based on this, as shown in
Moreover, as the measured values of 330 and 350 are close, it is also possible to estimate how close the user equipments (UEs) are to each other within the same space. For example, if the user equipment (UE) that measured 330 is the user equipment (UE) of an infected person, as the measured value of 350 is to the measured value of 330, since there is a very high possibility that they came into contact with each other, the user of the user equipment (UE) that measured 350 can be classified as a close contact. Conversely, as it moves away from the measured value of 330, the user of the user equipment (UE) that measured 350 can be classified as simple contacts or non-contacts.
Through the description of
The Accuracy item in
An apparatus of contact verification 500 may include a communication module 510 and a processor 530.
The communication module 510 receives spatiotemporal signal information from a plurality of user equipments (UEs) 100.
The processor 530 stores the spatiotemporal signal information, extract the spatiotemporal signal information of a specific user among the stored spatiotemporal signal information, configure the extracted spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user as reference spatiotemporal signal information, and compare similarity between the reference spatiotemporal signal information and the other stored spatiotemporal signal information, and determine whether or not there is contact between the specific user and another user based on the similarity.
The processor 530 may match a user equipment (UE) identifier with the spatiotemporal signal information and store it, the spatiotemporal signal information may be temporal and spatial fingerprints (TSF) that is continuously measured over a certain period of time from at least one sensor in the user equipment (UE) 100, and indicates space state information over time, and the TSF may include a signal type of the spatiotemporal signal information measured through the user equipment (UE) 100, signal strength according to the signal type, and a timestamp indicating information about a time at which the signal type and the signal strength were measured.
The processor 530 may select spatiotemporal signal information corresponding to the spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user from a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information when the specific user is determined to be infected.
The processor 530 may perform a first similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having timestamp information similar to timestamp information of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among a plurality of stored spatiotemporal signal information, perform a second similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a signal type and signal strength similar to a signal type and signal strength of the reference spatiotemporal signal information among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the first similarity test, and perform a third similarity test to search spatiotemporal signal information having a state value of an environment similar to a state value of an environment of the reference spatiotemporal signal information, when it contains environmental status values that indicate changes in the environment, among the spatiotemporal signal information searched as a result of the second similarity test.
The processor 530 may verify a user equipment (UE) identifier that measured spatiotemporal signal information similar to the reference spatiotemporal signal information of the specific user, and classify the user as a contact or non-contact.
The processor 530 may transmit an infectious disease testing recommendation message to infected people depending on whether or not there is the determined contact.
According to the above-described embodiments of the present disclosure, a technology for identifying the user's movement routes by comparing the similarity between signals received from the user equipment (UE) has been proposed. The proposed technology does not use the user's location information at all because it only compares the similarity of the signals themselves. As a result, it is free from privacy infringement issues that arise when determining whether or not there is contact between a user and an infectious disease patient. In addition, it is economical because there is no need to use resources to calculate location information, and it is easy to extract contact information, enabling rapid response to the spread of infectious diseases.
The embodiments of the present disclosure may be achieved by various means, for example, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof. In a hardware configuration, the methods according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be achieved by one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, etc. In a firmware or software configuration, the embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in the form of a module, a procedure, a function, etc. For example, software code may be stored in a memory unit and executed by a processor. The memories may be located at the interior or exterior of the processors and may transmit data to and receive data from the processors via various known means.
On the other hand, embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented as computer readable codes on a computer-readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all types of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage device, etc. In addition, the computer-readable recording medium may be distributed to computer systems connected through a network, so that computer-readable codes may be stored and executed in a distributed manner. In addition, functional programs, codes, and code segments for implementing the embodiments can be easily inferred by programmers in the technical field to which the present disclosure belongs.
In the above, the present disclosure has been examined focusing on its various embodiments. Those skilled in the art of the present disclosure will understand that various embodiments may be implemented in modified forms without departing from the essential characteristics of the present disclosure. Therefore, the disclosed embodiments should be considered from an illustrative rather than a restrictive perspective. The scope of the present disclosure is indicated in the claims rather than the foregoing description, and all differences within the equivalent scope should be construed as being included in the present disclosure.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2023-0092832 | Jul 2023 | KR | national |
