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CMU Engineering Joins Forces with Private Sector to Develop Hospital Staff Tracking System Using Wi-Fi — No Additional Hardware Required

15 May 2026
Corporate Communication and Alumni Relations Center (CCARC)
Asst. Prof. Dr. Nirand Pisutha-Arnond from the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chiang Mai University, has collaborated with Daywork (Thailand) Co., Ltd., the developer of the "Daywork Smart Escort" patient escort management system currently deployed in over 15 hospitals nationwide, to develop an indoor positioning system for patient escort staff. The project was supported by the Industrial Research and Technology Capacity Development Program (IRTC) under the Northern Science Park, fiscal year 2024.

The research team developed "Crowdsource Fingerprint Localization" technology that leverages existing Wi-Fi signals within hospital buildings by utilizing the unique signal patterns at each location — which act as a distinctive fingerprint — combined with Semi-Supervised Learning techniques, enabling the system to determine staff locations without any additional hardware installation. Testing at CMU's Science and Technology Park building achieved 95.4% accuracy on the first prediction. When deployed in real working conditions at Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital, covering 119 points across 15 buildings with over 59,000 data records from actual operations, the system maintained 90.3% accuracy within the top two predictions — sufficient for task assignment and human resource management in a hospital setting.

The project plans to expand tracking to other hospital staff such as food delivery, medication delivery, and housekeeping personnel, as well as to develop IoT devices for tracking hospital beds, gurneys, and high-value medical equipment. The initiative is estimated to potentially generate up to 3 million baht per year in added value for the private sector, serving as a clear example of bringing university research to life in the healthcare service sector.

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