Robots Extend Help in Medical Care to Fight Against COVID-19
Latest technology is being used to make robots to help in healthcare activities.
The battle against COVID-19 has called for all hands-on decks and now, robots with the latest technology have come forward to further improve the process of healthcare. Canadian technology company Kinova has come up with assistive robotic arms to be extensively used for disinfection and cleaning purposes. This particular robotic arm is known as Jaco.
The technology behind the robotic arm
Kinova robotic arm has the feature of 6-axis movement that corresponds to shoulder, elbow, and wrist. It allows a total of 16 movements mimicking the aspects of a normal human hand and can be attached to the motorized wheelchair. It can also take control of the different interfaces of the chair like joystick or head array system. These arms are run by Kinova® Kortex™ API software. The robotic arm comes in three models as Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 3 lite and the latest of them all is Gen 3 lite. The latest one is more cost-effective than the others. This model is ultra-lightweight, highly portable, power-efficient, and especially apt for mobile applications.
Moxi: The healthcare robot
Several companies have integrated Kinova robotic arm to make products to be used in healthcare. Dilligent has this arm to make a patient care robot with the name Moxi. In this robot, Kinova Gen 2 models of robotic arms have been used. It helps the clinical staff with duties that are not directly connected with the patients. The robot fetches supplies, delivers samples to the staff, distributes equipment, and thus helps the nurses to focus on more important tasks. The rounded design of Moxi is user-friendly. With the pandemic in the picture, having Moxi by the side has helped the healthcare workers a lot to divert their workload and complete more work in less time. It is also a very efficient investment of money as it saves a lot of human effort. The number of COVID patients is so high that an extra set of hands is always welcome.
Peanut Robotics: The cleaning robot
To help with the sanitary crisis in the healthcare centers, a Californian startup, Peanut Robotics has integrated a mobile platform using Kinovo Gen 3 model. They have coupled the seven degrees of freedom robot to some vertical rail. It can reach inconvenient places for cleaning. With the help of the flexibility of the robot gripper, this robot grabs tools like a human and can single-handedly clean an entire room. It also performs activities like spray disinfectant, scrubs decks, and floors and wipes various surfaces. What makes it more useful is that it reduces the rate of human contact with viruses and stops the spread of infection.
Autonomous Mobile Robotic UV Disinfector (Amrud)
Since the virus of this pandemic is spread through contact, spaces like airports and shopping malls are required to be cleaned frequently. However, it is not possible to clean such large spaces with simple robotic arms. To help with the situation, A&K robotics has come up with a very lightweight robot that uses UV lights to disinfect surfaces and thus covers a larger ground.
Scientists are hopeful that these robots are making it a lot easier for healthcare workers to fight with COVID-19 by the distribution of workload and improving the pace of work. More companies are gradually focusing on making more innovative equipment to help in the medical field as it saves time as well as is profitable.
