2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19): Toward a Novel Design for Nasopharyngeal and Oropharyngeal Swabbing Robot

The world still suffers from the global pandemic of corona virus. The COVID 19 is a disease that majorly influence the patient’s respiratory system and degrade the performance of the immune system. The Polymerase Chain Reactions (PCRs) is commonly used method to assist the health care service in detection the viral disease. It permits identifying the defined chains of the virus genetic code in sputum samples. The front-line staffs are susceptible to infection by COVID 19 during direct swab test that unfortunately subjects them to a high level of risk. To remedy this problem, this paper introduces a flexible swabbing robot for oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal. This robot is teleworked-based to perform swab sampling with consisting of a flexible manipulator, an integrated endoscope monitor, and the main device. The additional components incorporate a passive locating arm, an active end effector, and a detachable swab handles capable to sense forces. The achieved results revealed the capability of the proposed system in the detection COVID 19 of PCRs specimens based on little data acquired from the clinicians.