Enhancing safety with an AI-empowered assessment and monitoring system for BSL-3 facilities

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent demand for research, which has spurred the development of enhanced biosafety protocols in biosafety level (BSL)-3 laboratories to safeguard against the risks associated with handling highly contagious pathogens. Laboratory management failures can pose significant hazards.

An external system captured images of personnel entering a laboratory, which were then analyzed by an AI-based system to verify their compliance with personal protective equipment (PPE) regulations, thereby introducing an additional layer of protection. A deep learning model was trained to detect the presence of essential PPE items, such as clothing, masks, hoods, double-layer gloves, shoe covers, and respirators, ensuring adherence to World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The internal laboratory management system used a deep learning model to delineate alert zones and monitor compliance with the imposed safety protocols.

The external detection system was trained on a dataset consisting of 4112 images divided into 15 PPE compliance classes. The model achieved an accuracy of 97.52 % and a recall of 97.03 %. The identification results were presented in real time via a visual interface and simultaneously stored on the administrator's dashboard for future reference. We trained the internal management system on 3347 images, achieving 90 % accuracy and 85 % recall. The results were transmitted in JSON format to the internal monitoring system, which triggered alerts in response to violations of safe practices or alert zones. Real-time notifications were sent to the administrators when the safety thresholds were met.

The BSL-3 laboratory monitoring system significantly reduces the risk of exposure to pathogens for personnel during laboratory operations. By ensuring the correct use of PPE and enhancing adherence to the imposed safety protocols, this system contributes to maintaining the integrity of BSL-3 facilities and mitigates the risk of personnel becoming infection vectors.