Hand-held GPU accelerated device for multiclass classification of X-ray images using CNN model

Chest X-ray (CXR) images are the primary investigation aid for many lung diseases and their follow-ups. For diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, RT–PCR test and chest Computed Tomography (CT) are commonly used but both face false negatives for ruling out the infection. So, there is a demanding need for developing a system combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and CXR imaging to detect COVID-19 patients to avoid its spread. Here, a robust and efficient handheld device is proposed. It uses the computational power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and pre-trained deep learning models for analyzing the CXR images. A Resnet-50 CNN model is deployed on an NVIDIA Jetson Nano GPU module for the real-time classification of COVID-19, Tuberculosis, and Normal using CXR images. The device can perform real-time classification of CXR images from a portable X-ray machine and classify the image into one of the above categories. For the extensive training, a database of 680 COVID-19, 1230 Tuberculosis, and 1050 normal CXR images are extracted by combining several global databases like Kaggle, SIRM, RSNA, and Radiopaedia. The classification accuracy, precision, and loss rate were 0.9879, 0.9758, and 0.0196 respectively and our model would improve with larger data sets. The highly accurate and high-performance GPU device significantly plays a far-reaching role in COVID-19 diagnosis using Chest X-ray, which could be beneficial to triage the health system and to combat the outbreak of COVID-19.