Tripura University professor develops robot for contact-less delivery of food, medicine to coronavirus patients

A Tripura University professor has developed a low-cost robot, which will help in delivering food and medicine to coronavirus infected patients, hence reducing the risk of health care workers from getting infected with the virus.

With an aim to prevent frontline health workers from getting infected with COVID-19, a Tripura University professor has developed a robot, to deliver food and medicine to coronavirus infected patients, an official said.

The 'COVID-19 Warbot', has been developed from scrap material. Dr. Harjit Nath, an assistant professor of the Chemical and Polymer Engineering Department of the Tripura University, have created it. It is regulated by a transmitter and a receiver taken out of a toy car and can work for 90 minutes on a full charge.

"It is a low-cost robot, which was made from waste materials in the laboratory. I also took help from a worker of a local hardware factory, and it was built within a week. I spent only Rs 25,000 to manufacture it," Nath said.

The robot with three 0.5 Horse Power motors and rechargeable batteries is capable of carrying up to 15 kg of food and medicines on a plastic tray mounted on top of it, he said.

"There is a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment kits. The frontline health workers such as doctors and nurses are at the risk of getting infected with the coronavirus. The robot will help minimize the risk for them," the IIT-Guwahati pass-out, Nath said.

A Kochi-based startup firm, Asimov Robotics, has also made a similar robot to serve patients and minimize risk for healthcare professionals. "Many more programmes can be added to the robot so that it can perform other jobs such as thermal screening of suspected patients. Many sophisticated gadgets are not available now due to the ongoing lockdown," he said.