NE HEALTH BUREAU
KOCHI, APRIL 25
A government hospital in Ernakulam here has deployed a robot to serve food and medicines to coronavirus patients with an aim to reduce risk of infections for doctors and health workers.
Asimov Robotics, a #Kerala based startup, has handed over Karmi bot, its fully-autonomous robot, to Govt Medical College, Ernakulam (a #COVID19 hospital) where it will deliver food to patients, disinfect premises/objects &facilitate video call b’ween patients & docs/folks outside pic.twitter.com/FVtI1LFuR9
— S. Anandan (@Anandans76) April 25, 2020
The Robot was donated by Malayalam film star Mohanlal’s Viswasanthi Foundation. The Robot is used at the COVID-19 ward of the hospital.
The robot named ”KARMI-Bot” will be used to assist patients at the medical college’s COVID-19 isolation ward from Saturday onwards, the Ernakulam district public relations department said in a release.
The robot is developed by ASIMOV robotics, a company working under maker village of Kerala start-up mission. “Dispensing food, medicine, collecting the trash used by the patients, performing disinfection, enable video call between the doctor and patients etc are the main responsibilities of the robot”, the release said.
The purpose of this project is to limit the interaction between COVID-19 patients and health workers as well as to address the shortage of PPE kits by minimizing its use, it said. Once configured, the robot will be able to perform its duties fully autonomously. Carrying a payload of up to 25 kgs, the robot is capable of achieving a maximum speed of 1m per sec. UV based disinfection and targeted detergent spray are the additional capabilities of KARMI-Bot, which featured in the latest cover story of Forbes magazine.
ASIMOV Robotics aims to incorporate contactless routine temperature checking and automated charger docking to KARMI- Bot, once the spare parts are available after lock down.
The robot was handed over to District Collector S Suhas by the directors of Viswasanthi foundation Major Ravi and Vinu Krishnan along with Jayakrishnan, CEO of ASIMOV robotics in a function at Start-Up Village, the release said.
