A group of researchers from Systems Engineering and Automating, and Microbiology at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) are developing and building the low-cost prototype of a mobile robot for eliminating the virus, which may be useful in society, especially in hospitals, care homes for the elderly and classrooms. This is one more contribution towards the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic from the university and adds to the range of business projects that have arisen in robotics which are aimed at disinfecting materials, vehicles or rooms for a range of purposes.

The project began in June at the Ciudad Real Higher School of Industrial Engineering with the initial plan of creating a mobile robot for disinfecting which uses low-cost ultraviolet C rays  ( since there are many similar products on the market, but they are very expensive ) is functional and can be applied in different fields.

The robot can move independently around the rooms, classrooms and building floors, and it can disinfect them from the virus and/or bacteria with an embedded ultraviolet C lamp. Also, it is equipped with a safety system and will stop on detecting humans when working as it has artificial intelligence techniques and  has been developed with open hardware and software.

The research team for the robot prototype, UV-UCLM  is headed  by professors Vicente Feliu and Francisco Ramos, from the group Automatisation, Robotics and Mechatronics; Antonio Adán and Andrés Salomón Vázquez, from the group 3D Visual Computing and Robotics; Oscar Déniz, from the Intelligent Systems and Vision group; and María Dolors Vidal, from the group Applied Molecular Studies for Health Sciences.

The initiative is going ahead with the company, Robotnik, whose line of business is building robots; assessment by the General Directorate of Infrastructures from the Madrid Health Service (SERMAS) and backed by the Official School of Industrial Engineers of Madrid with its Ciudad Real branch.

UCLM Communication Office Ciudad Real, 27th of November 2020