Design and Development of Assistive Robotic System for Covid-19

Nowadays, many advanced countries are taking the advantage of the modern robotic technology to develop and deploy robots in hospitals, airports and healthcare centers to assist the nation combat the deadly virus, known as COVID-19. This Research paper focuses on an artificial intelligence based robotic device that is developed. The robot is equipped with germs and virus killing Ultraviolet (UV) light system along with conventional spraying system for cleaning off any possibly infected area. The robot titled as "Assistive Robot for Covid-19 (ARC-19)" functions on two modes of operations, Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous. Traditionally, the cleaning job is done by cleaning workers, and the healthcare staff have direct contact with the COVID-19 patient. Instead, the developed contactless ARC-19 system can easily disinfect any possibly infected high-touch surface, and reduce the direct-contact between the patient and healthcare staff. After testing the robot, it turns out that the robot was able to kill 98% of the bacteria and other harmful viruses including COVID-19. This could lead to cost-effective, fast, and practical method to reduce the risk on being infected by COVID-19.