MUHC tests a UV disinfection robot [VIDÉO] | COVID-19 | News | The sun

Autonomy and speed

The robot from the Danish company UVD Robots is about 1.71 meters high and weighs 140 kilos. It travels at just over 5 kilometers per hour and its battery can be recharged in six hours. The UV module has an autonomy of about two hours, which would be enough to clean a dozen rooms, according to UVD Robots.

Its cost is around $ 120,000.

Manual cleaning of a room takes about an hour, Dr. Mazer explained. The robot could do the job in just ten minutes. A human employee then has to take care of tasks like changing sheets, but ultimately the room could be ready for a new patient twice as fast.

“If we have a way of doing things with technology that is fast and efficient, we can really save money, we can have rooms faster for other patients and we can avoid risks for our workers,” said Dr. Mazer.

The robot needs guidance when it cleans a room for the first time – but only the first time.

“It’s an automated robot controlled by GPS,” explained Dr. Mazer. When the robot travels through a room once, its memory will be loaded, and it can make the same room the same way whenever we need it. ”

He is also able to spot the obstacles that stand in front of him and adjust his trajectory accordingly.

Not just COVID-19

The robot could offer a valuable contribution outside the hospital context, believes Dr. Mazer.

“It could be useful, for example, for planes or subways,” he said. It could be incredible for a subway car; in fifteen minutes we could clean an entire train. ”

The MUHC began to take an interest in this technology a few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic.

“In a research institute like ours, we are not only working on COVID-19,” said Dr. Mazer. We are working on tuberculosis, on HIV, on other very resistant microbes, and having a system that can be very important for hospitals that work on acute diseases with patients. […] for whom the risk of infection is very high.

“It will save lives, it will reduce waiting lists, it will reduce nosocomial infections, it can be very useful.”

UVD Robots’ robot is already in use in China, Asia and Europe.

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