Watch: Could robots be the key to killing coronavirus?
Stay at home, keep your distance, wash your hands. So far, the NHS approach to the coronavirus epidemic seems to have been very much along traditional lines.
But could there also be a place for Dalek-like robots in the war against the the disease which is gripping the world?
"Please leave the room, close the door and start a disinfection," says the machine, as it prepares to go about its business in a mock-hospital ward in Denmark. The robot navigates the room, zapping microbes with beams of ultra-violet light.
Blue Ocean Robotics, the company which makes the devices, claims that the robots can kill 99.99 per cent of all germs in a hospital ward in just 10 minutes, and demand has surged since the outbreak of the virus.
“We are now helping solve one of the biggest problems of our time, preventing the spread of viruses and bacteria with a robot that saves lives,” says Claus Risager, chief executive of Blue Ocean Robotics. “The immediate demand has increased a lot with the outbreak of Covid-19.
Pathogen Enemy No.1 from Simon Ellison on Vimeo.
"Existing customers buy many more units than before, and many new customers are ordering the UVD robots to fight coronavirus and other harmful microorganisms.”
Chinese hospitals have ordered more than 2,000 UVD robots by Danish manufacturer Blue Ocean Robotics. They started to destroy viruses in Wuhan, where the global pandemic began, and the units operate in more than 40 countries across Asia, Europe and the United States.
The device won the 15th Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation, and over the past two years sales have grown by more than 400 per cent.
The robot, built in the Danish city of Odense, moves autonomously around patient rooms and operating theatres – covering all critical surfaces with the right amount of ultra-violet light in order to kill specific viruses and bacteria. The more light the robot exposes to a surface, the more harmful microorganisms are destroyed.
Risager says the robot is not a replacement for cleaning staff, but works in a supplementary manner. Because excess exposure to ultra-violet light can be harmful to humans, the robots feature a safety device that disengages should anybody enter the room.
While they are primarily being marketed to hospitals at the moment, they can also be used in offices, shopping centres, schools, and airports.
Susanne Bieller, general secretary of the International Federation of Robotics, says: “Robots have a great potential of supporting us in the current severe corona pandemic,
“They can support us in healthcare environments, but also in the development, testing and production of medicine, vaccines and other medical devices and auxiliaries."
She says as well as disinfecting wards with ultra-violet rays, robots can also play an important role in reducing personal contact by transporting items around a hospital.
