Amazon announced AI-powered 'Distance Assistant' to deal with COVID-19 situation

Amazon introduced Artificial Intelligence-powered Distance assistant to improve social distancing at its facilities.

Amazon's Distance Assistant leverages live feedback on social distancing with a camera, a 50-inch monitor, and a local computing device. Depth sensors and Machine learning models identify people from the surroundings and inform about the distance between two people.

In a blog post, Vice President, Amazon Robotics, Brad Porter, said, "Our first Distance Assistant installations are now live at a handful of our buildings. We’ve heard that employees find value in getting immediate visual feedback, and site leaders are welcoming another safety measure. Based on that positive employee feedback, we will be deploying hundreds of these units over the next few weeks. We are also beginning the process to open source the software and AI behind this innovation so that anyone can create their own Distance Assistant."

The AI-powered solutions display visual overlays on monitor display showing if two people are within 6 feet of distance from each other.

The solution device can be deployed easily building entrances. Amazon also said that they intend to open source the AI software.