Coronavirus: AIIMS deploys robots to avoid transmission from patients to healthcare workers
iMap 9 is a disinfecting robot that can sanitise floors whereas Humanoid ELF enables doctors to monitor and interact with patients without the need for face-to-face communication.
As the healthcare ecosystem struggles to increase medical equipment for the healthcare workers who are proving to be the vanguards, taking care of the people who are falling prey to such the deadly coronavirus, companies like Milagrow HumanTech have come forward to ease the burden on this community of people.
Milagrow iMap 9 and Humanoid ELF are two robots developed by the Delhi-based company which are being deployed by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi to fight a life and death battle with the draconian coronavirus which has brought the world to a standstill.
Rajeev Karwal, Founder of Milagrow HumanTech
The Milagrow iMap 9 is a disinfecting robot that can navigate and sanitise the floors without any human intervention. It can destroy COVID-19 spores on floor surfaces using sodium hypochlorite solution, as recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The other robot—Humanoid ELF—enables doctors to monitor and interact with contagious COVID-19 patients remotely without any human interaction, thereby significantly reducing the transmission risk.
Speaking to YourStory, Rajeev Karwal, Founder of Milagrow, says, “The Milagrow iMap robot actually employs a LIDAR-plus lamp Technology and is able to do the scanning 2,160 times per second and at one point in time it can see up to 16 meters with an eight millimeter accuracy.” In addition, the robot can do zoning, virtual blocking of avoidable areas and sequential cleaning of zones based on specific needs.
Elaborating the details of the Humanoid ELF model, Rajeev says, “As far as the humanoid robot model is concerned, AIIMS wanted no contact between the patient and the healthcare professional. So we made a software, which is called Follow Me. The robot already had the PIR sensor and the human body sensor. Follow Me software enables the robot to identify the healthcare worker as its master by way of hand gestures.”
Humanoid ELF
Thereafter, this robot starts to follow the healthcare worker without having to touch once the health worker. Bored patients in isolation wards can also interact with their relatives from time to time through this robot.
This robot will also help in keeping surveillance. “It can wander around the ward and will record everything with respect to the activities going on,” he adds.
One piece each of both the models have been picked up by AIIMS for its COVID-19 ward. The robots were selected after a series of demos with the authorities. Moolchand Hospital and Apollo hospital (Indraprastha) have already deployed the robots. The company is in talks with Fortis Healthcare hospitals in Gurugram and Shalimar Bagh, Delhi.
Milagrow HumanTech was founded in 2007. In 2011, it started manufacturing robots in its facility in Gurugram. Initially, the company was only designing residential robots but slowly it made its way to other segments such as hospitality and healthcare.
Edited by Kanishk Singh