UVC disinfection robot

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to contribute in the fight against the spread of Covid-19, a novel human coronavirus, in hospitals, public transport, airlines, and any enclosed areas. In this study, we have adopted the physical disinfection method by using UVC light as agent. The UVC devices are studied and classified according their disinfectant units, complementary devices, combined disinfection agents, mobilities, and order types. Our finding shows that a mobile robot is the most efficient device to inactivate microorganisms, so we have developed a robot called i-Robot UVC. The robot is equipped with eight UVC lamps around a central column and two lamps on the top. The column is fixed on a mobile base where several sensors are integrated to measure temperature and humidity on the one hand, and on the other, to detect motion plus position and to avoid obstacles. The robot can estimate automatically the disinfection time while monitored by Wi-Fi connection from a phone or a tablet. I-Robot UVC disinfects rooms and equipment with ultraviolet light, and shuts down when humans are around to keep them safe. The robot can kill 99,999% bacteria and various through UVC lamps led. The innovative robot UVC was patented under the number TN2020/0063.

A literature survey of the robotic technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The UVC light was also utilised as a germicidal add-on on the mobile robot, for the disinfection in both industrial and civil environments [ 92 ]. Similarly, eight UVC lamps were equipped around the central column of a mobile robot, with two extra lamps on the top [ 93 ]. The mobile base integrates different types of sensors which is capable of avoiding obstacles and measuring working environment, e.g.…”

BIM-Integrated Collaborative Robotics for Application in Building Construction and Maintenance

“…Among other duties, suitably designed robots can be employed for disinfection tasks. Several robotic solutions for disinfection have been recently developed, for instance, based on ultraviolet light [56][57][58][59][60], spraying of disinfectant [60,61], or a combination of both [60]. The navigation of the existing robotic systems is enabled using ROS and sensor data [57,58,61], embedded navigation and localization with deep learning for semantic environment mapping [56], and the use of predefined maps of areas to disinfect [60].…”

Impact of COVID-19 on IoT Adoption in Healthcare, Smart Homes, Smart Buildings, Smart Cities, Transportation and Industrial IoT

“…Furthermore, many countries have introduced new regulations including stricter cleaning requirements [ 65 ] and record keeping requirements for contact tracing [ 66 ]. This has led to the deployment of robots for efficient and effective disinfection [ 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 ] as well as technology-assisted record keeping and visitor tracking/monitoring [ 71 , 72 ]. We provide more details of these in Section 3.3 (Smart Buildings) because these IoT solutions (disinfectant robots and visitor tracking) are mainly deployed within buildings.…”

“…Robots developed by Boston Dynamics [ 67 ] are being used in Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard University. Researchers in [ 68 ] have developed an i-Robot equipped with eight UVC lamps for disinfection purposes. A recent study [ 70 ] elaborates on disinfection robots being used in different types of buildings.…”