There are robots bedecked with lamps that bathe surfaces in invisible radiation, robots with enough autonomy to safely coexist with humans while sanitizing floors 24/7, robots that can scan for fevers and enforce mask-wearing, even robots that spew antimicrobial gas in outdoor spaces. (That approach, scientists say, is probably futile.)
Importantly, many of these robots are already being used to enter environments before humans do, allowing them to prevent infection not only of patients and medical personnel, but potentially also front-line cleaning staff.
At Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, known as CVG, passengers are sparse, but an autonomous robot has been patrolling terminals all day, every day, since the start of 2020. The Avidbots Neo weighs 1,050 pounds when fully loaded but, because of artificial intelligence and a bank of cameras and other sensors, can safely operate around humans. While a fleet of 20 of these bots is already in use in one of the world’s busiest airports—Changi in Singapore—the model at CVG is the first in a U.S. airport.
Brian Cobb, the airport’s chief innovation officer, says the Neo is capable of disinfecting and not merely cleaning, since it can dispense a solution of germ-killing fluid from one tank and suck it up into a second one, to be disposed of later.
Other robots that were never intended for disinfection with chemicals have been pressed into service. As soon as it became clear an outbreak was brewing in Wuhan, UBTech Robotics, based in Shenzhen, China, began a crash R&D program to modify some of its existing robots to battle coronavirus. On one, the Atris outdoor security robot, engineers attached a system to spray disinfectant in public places. This has become a common anti-coronavirus practice in China, but scientists say there’s little evidence it does anything, and can even be dangerous, since it involves filling the air with a dilute solution of lung-irritating bleach.
Another approach to disinfecting with robots that, by contrast, is backed by decades of research, is the use of high-intensity UV light in indoor spaces, says Benjamin Tanner, chief executive of Austin, Texas-based Microchem Laboratory, which tests antimicrobial technologies for registration with the Environmental Protection Agency.
For years, hospitals have used high-frequency UVC light, a kind of UV light that is dangerous to humans and lethal to microbes, to sanitize rooms. No one can be in the room when it’s in use. Depending on the power of the bulb, a cluster of UVC-emitting lamps wheeled into a room can do the job in anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. These systems have the advantage of reaching many surfaces that cleaning staff tend to forget, says Dr. Tanner.
UVC light also has a particular talent for killing airborne microbes, not just ones on surfaces. This could be especially important for the current pandemic if it turns out that, as many scientists suspect, a major way coronavirus is transmitted might be when people breathe in particles wafting about indoor spaces.
One disadvantage of using light is that it requires a human to enter the room—between cycles, of course—to move the UVC-emitting tubes from one position to another, so all surfaces in a room receive the maximum dosage of radiation.
A handful of companies are trying to address this issue by using these lights, in a way safe for humans, on top of autonomous robots that can rove about public spaces, shining their baleful glow all over everything, destroying viruses, bacteria and fungi alike.
One such company, UVD Robots, launched in Denmark in 2014 and started selling its robots in 2018. It now sells robots in nearly 50 countries. Since February, hospitals in hotspots in China have been using its technology. Demand for the company’s UVC-disinfecting robots has exploded since December, putting the company on track to deliver two to three times as many robots as it had originally projected in 2020, says CEO Per Juul Nielsen.
These robots aren’t complicated by the standards of autonomous vehicles, but they are able to move through hospitals and clean rooms with minimal human oversight. This has allowed hospitals—and increasingly, other facilities like warehouses, prisons and offices—to disinfect more often than they would with humans, sometimes as frequently as every few hours.
A new protocol for the age of coronavirus being used by some customers of UVD Robots involves sending their robot into rooms after coronavirus-positive patients have exited but before anyone else has entered. By conducting a preliminary sterilization before the room is cleaned, it’s operating in a manner not so different from robots that have in the past entered wrecked nuclear power plants and other hazardous environments.
Mr. Nielsen isn’t the only innovator shipping to eager customers right now. As startups, the companies I talked to won’t disclose exact quantities, but the numbers remain small, in the dozens or hundreds range, not the thousands or tens of thousands they might be able to ship if they were already producing at scale.
Nor is it clear how robust this market will be. Like America’s poorly maintained reserve of emergency ventilators or woefully insufficient stockpile of masks and personal protective equipment, it’s possible that once the threat of coronavirus has passed, demand for these technologies will decline precipitously.
Jenny Lee, a 15-year veteran of venture-capital firm GGV Capital and an investor in Avidbots, says that coronavirus has put a spotlight on robotics and automation in general. Many robotics companies in China, for example, quickly adapted general-purpose autonomous robots, typically used to patrol offices or move goods indoors, to do things like roam hospitals with sensors to detect people’s temperature, or to carry UV lamps.
In addition to its disinfectant-spraying robot, UBTech outfitted two other models of its enterprise robots, the Cruzr and Aimbot, with thermal cameras to “see” if someone is running a fever. They also have object-recognition algorithms that allow them to determine whether a person is wearing a mask. Deployed in hospitals, they’re able to navigate the halls autonomously, reminding people to wear masks and flagging people who might be sick. The Cruzr model also has the ability to act as a concierge, giving incoming patients a two-way video connection to a remote doctor who might conduct their initial intake assessment.
One challenge for the new market for “clean tech” is that all these robots might not prove to be cost effective compared to solutions that aren’t as fancy. Cleaning hard surfaces where viruses spread, like door handles and elevator buttons, still requires a level of dexterity and maneuverability that only humans possess. But Ms. Lee is hopeful that companies will continue to work on robots with smaller form factors and more autonomy.
Another concern is that a great deal of research on the effectiveness of all of these technologies remains to be conducted. UV-light systems, in particular, vary a great deal in how effective they are and are lightly regulated, says Microchem Laboratory’s Dr. Tanner. “There are manufacturers who have done no testing of their own, and it’s a little bit of buyer beware on the UV market,” he adds. Some firms have used research to show their systems are very effective, not just at killing germs but actually reducing infection rates in hospitals.
At Microchem Laboratory, which evaluates a whole host of antimicrobial technologies, from disinfectants to UV lights, Dr. Tanner is now receiving 15 to 20 inquiries per day from existing and new customers that have technology they want his lab to evaluate. Prior to coronavirus, he only got one or two inquiries a day.
John Rhee, general manager of UBTech Robotics North America, is betting that the extent of the coronavirus pandemic has woken up the world to the need for long-term preparedness.
“We talk about flattening the curve, but the need to be vigilant and have increased monitoring and have measures in place to decrease transmission are things that organizations both public and private will have to take seriously for a very long time,” he says.
Source: Wall Street Journal By Christopher Mims
No comments:
Post a Comment