I Robo - The Automated disinfection robot

THE I ROBO

INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the way we work, socialize and most importantly, how we care for those who are the most vulnerable. UV light sanitizers are popping up as the answer to killing coronavirus on our hands, Phones, Devices, Air, surfaces...etc

With man-made hand sanitizer in short supply, many people are turning to what's been called "nature's hand sanitizer, " or ultraviolet light. UV light is the latest popular tool in the ongoing race to find ways to prevent oneself from catching SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Disinfection by way of UV light is nothing new: The International Ultraviolet Association says it's been a useful technology for over 40 years, contributing to clean water and clean air. Many consumer devices also use UV light to disinfect things, such as self-cleaning UV light water bottles and UV-emitting cases that clean your dirty phone. But most commonly the UV disinfection technology is used to purify air indoor.

We are better equipped to address the continued pandemic and need sustainable low-cost solutions that can provide safe, preventive, effective ways to protect people in workplaces, shopping areas, healthcare facilities, etc. The UV light technology is one way to reduce exposure to surfaces that may have viruses or bacteria, and also does not require human interaction for the sanitation of those surfaces. So the best solution for this is a UV disinfection robot. And I am introducing a Low-cost automated UV Disinfection robot called “I Robo”.

The I Robo is designed for indoor virus prevention. The I Robo is a simple and automated UV disinfection Robot that can be used to sanitize surfaces and air in a wide area. It can be used in hospitals, storerooms, home, workstations, Covid-19 wards…etc. It is totally transportable. And it is relatively low cost.

The I Robo contains UV disinfection Lamps, High-quality air purification system, and a good power system, sensor systems, an AI Camera...ect. And it can be operated easily, it does not require any experience for operating the robot. Anybody can operate the I Robo by its own light weighted application that can be installed in both android phone and I phone. The application is fully assisted with simulations and a character called I Robo so anybody can use the application simply like playing a simulation game. I Robo has a powerful integrated Simultaneous Localization And Mapping system that enables autonomous driving. After a navigation route has been preset, the robot is able to navigate and spray disinfectant in the defined area.

And we can drive I Robo into the desired position by manually controlling I Robo wheels by phone or tab through the I Robo application by the assistance from the sensors in the I Robo robot. I robo have the sensor systems and AI camera for monitoring area around it.

THE "I ROBO" – TECHNOLOGIES

DSINFECTION SYSTEM

The main part of the I Robo is 8 UV lamps of UV-C (280nm - 200nm) type in the cylindrical shape arranged to face to 8 direction in as a circular shape with a radius of 16 CM, and for each UV lamp reflectors are arranged in their background and are placed in a circular shape with a radius of 10 cm to get more efficiency. By using UV-C it enables effective virus disinfection in less timeIn a short time

Also, I Robo have an integrated Air purification system which supports the UV disinfection and these purification system can use in the presence of human. The inlet valve of the air purification system is connected to the air inlet regions which is surrounded at the bottom side of the robot.

Why the air inlet system is at the bottom of the robot?

It is because of the principle of virus particle are associated with droplets and body fluids. Relatively such type of droplets have more mass than the air particles, due to sedimentation process, such droplets will sediment to the bottom side of the air.

After the air purification through the air purifier. The air will release through the air outlet system in the upper side of the robot.The UV light is not good for human health and skin. So the I Robo contains more security features in this area. The AI camera and 3D sensor in the Robot help to avoid the human presence as well as any other living creatures like Pets. Only the I Robo works in a closed room. The I Robo require a minimum of 16 minutes to Disinfect the room or Work station. Larger the area increases the Disinfection time.

There are 5 processes is inside a UV disinfection cycle.

1. Mapping and Space analyzation

This is process is required only if the region/area is newer to the I Robo, in this process. The I Robo analyse the place/Room where it wants to disinfect. The controller can choose and map the area for the disinfection from the I Robo application paired with the corresponding Robot. The pairing process can be done by easily with the help of I Robo assistant in the application. The mapping can be done easily with the support of integrated Simultaneous Localization And Mapping system, AI camera 3D sensor and monitoring system and other sensor systems in the I Robo. Then the Robot will prose the AI algorithms and make an image about the area like total area, Blocks, 3d Picture of the area...etc. from this information. Then this information will save to the cloud and store in the I Robo. These information’s can be shared to any another I Robo through the cloud. It will take a few minutes to depend upon the area/room

The process is required only once for an area. If The area is already Mapped and analysed there is no requirement of mapping in the next time for the corresponding area. After the mapping process, The I Robo give a notification message and then everybody can clear out the area. And close the doors to the Area.

2. Security checking and notification

This process is started by giving the command from the application to start the UV disinfection. In this process the I Robo check the area by driving itself through the area and check the if there is any living creature or any persons are at the areas which are required to disinfection with the help of powerful sensor systems and the AI camera. If the deserve area is clear then the I Robo send a notification to the application that UV disinfection is starting then it proceeds to the next process. If the deserve area is not clear and if some living creature, The robot will stop the process and send a warning notification to the application. If a human presence in the area is detected the I Robo will give the warning message to the application as well as it gives the warning message and requests to clear out the area through the speaker in the I Robo in English and in the local language. For continuing the process again we want to give start command from the application then the Security checking process will restart. If the instruction is doesn’t give within 5 minutes. the Robot will again drive through the full area without neglecting the checked area. This process will repeat until the security checking is successful. And continue to the next step. The security checking process takes a minimum of 2 minutes. Larger the area increases the time.

3. UV Disinfection Process

This is the process where the actual UV disinfection is done. The robot will light ups its UV lamps and starts the air purification system. And slowly drive through the area for the disinfection process. Also, analyse the area around it. For avoiding the Blocks to the UV light. A minimum of 13 minutes to disinfect the area/Room.

4. Cool Downtime

After the completion of UV disinfection. The robot will go to the starting position and UV lights will automatically turn off. And wait for a minute for a cool down.

5. Process Complete Notification

After the cool down time, the robot will send a success message that the UV disinfection process is completed and the room area is ready to use. After getting the confirmation message.

SLAM (LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING SYSTEM) AND AUTONOMOUS DRIVING SYSTEM

I Robo has a powerful integrated Simultaneous Localization And Mapping system that enables autonomous driving. Which is a new technique in Robotics used to track moving objects. This system extracts both line and point features from the scene. The line features are used mostly because point features are less informative. This algorithm is designed and developed with line features by modeling the moving objects. The position of these objects is identified with indoor and outdoor datasets. `Kitty' dateset are used for testing this algorithm. Stereo vision cameras are used to capture the real time data. The shape, color and depth features are also extracted to plot the trajectory. This method has been successfully implemented with real time data.

SLAM enables the autonomous driving system. I robo has a 4 wheel driving system connected with the SLAM. The robot can perform full axial Rotations which is helpful to drive through the narrow paths (eg: smaller gaps with the two tables in the workstations). And all the SLAM data is shared to the cloud. So any other I robo can use these SLAM data. For supporting SLAM there is powerful sensor system and an 360 degree rotating AI camera is integrated with the robot. By these sensor systems and AI camera the robot can monitor the surroundings, detects humans, blocks... etc. which is helpful to avoids blocks during uv disinfection and it enables the autonomous driving through in complicated situations. And also it enables the effective disinfection in all areas.

SECURITY AND NETWORK CONNECTIVITY

The I Robo has an inbuilt Wi-Fi with a large area coverage for getting proper and speed network connections. All the communication to the application from the robot is secured with MQTT Protocol and the Robo has a good firewall protection system integrated wit the I Robo for communicating to the network and to the I Robo Clouds.

POWER BACKUP SYYSTEM AND CHARGING

The I robo has a good and powerful power backup system for standing upto 6 hours continues working. And it is integrated with a wireless charging system. The I robo is charged by its charging station. The I robo charging stations are connected to the plug and placed in the floor so the robots can drive into that power stations. The charging stations automatically detects the presence of robot. the power stations enables the wireless charging only in the presence of a I robo.

VIABILITY

As COVID-19 spreads across the world, hospitals have become ground zero for the corona virus. Surfaces contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 pose a grave threat to the safety of staff and patients. To minimize the risks for their staff, hospitals are utilizing disinfection robots to sanitize surfaces. Read on and learn more about how some of those robots kill 99.99 percent of germs. This is cost to high and it requires more for the robot. As the first wave of COVID-19 impacted every population across the globe, we learned many new things pertaining to transmission and prevention. The peoples are going outside for buying their needs and for nowadays the things going back the peoples are coming outside from home and they slowly going to their offices and workstations. By that, the risk of speeding Corona virus is going high. So the surfaces at such destinations want to Disinfect more conveniently and effectively in time intervals.

By the usage of UV-C type lamps in I Robo it is effective to sanitize the area in a short time. A single lamp of UV-C can sanitize effectively up to 8 feet from the UV lamp in 13 minutes. By using 8 UV-C lamps Things gets better. UV light is not good for the human health. By the great security features and procedures of the robot, the UV disinfection process works only if there no presence of Living creature in the disinfection region. And the UV disinfection process starts only on the specified time. All other time only the Air purification system works. It has a very good power backup and charging system for the robot. There is requirement of manual charging for the robot. If the battery percentage is lower or in the Unused time the I robo will goto its wireless charging spot and automatically charge itself. Every starting and ending the charging it will send a notification to the application. And if the robot can’t enter the charging spot or the desired position of charging it send the alert message to the application.

Also it has a cloud connectivity features integrated with it. By that the all the conditions of the robot including charge percentage, temperature of the body parts, Local position…etc. will send to the application. The I robo can be used in for home usages, Hospital as well as workstations…etc. In home as well as personal or a small area usages only one Iunit is required. And the working of the I robo will common.

But in the hospital, workstation like usages there is lot of area there. It requires More than one robot units. And things will more complicated. For avoiding these complications by the cloud connectivity we can simply solve this complicity.

For example if we consider a super specialty hospital with bigger buildings or with more than one blocks. Here the area is wider and requires more than one I Robo units. And the normal usage is not applicable. Here the things get changing. If we considering one or two units is required for one floor or one block of the hospital. By the cloud connectivity we can assemble a system for controlling and monitoring all the I Robo in the hospital together. These system can be installed in the computer systems security or cleaning department of the hospital. It only require only computer which is being part of the hospital network. Then requires a charging point or area for the units in each of the floor or block. And we can assign the working time of the hospitals includes Canteen work time, Each doctors work time…etc. By the SLAM technology the I Robo can understand the Rooms and area inside the hospital block or floor. We can easily install these information and hospital map to the system. This enables the autonomous driving inside the block or in the floor.

The robot activates its normal air purification system at regular intervals during normal hospital hours and rooms the public spaces in their desired Floor or block. At the end of a single cycle, it returns to its charging point and charges. The resting hours of the hospital rooms, for example, the interval and non working time of the doctor the considering room of the doctor will be closed and there is no persons will be at that room. So the robot will check the working times of the doctor and it will send a request to the controlling system for UV disinfection at the desired room of the doctor. And if the room is cleared with doctors and nurses and there is no living creatures present system is present at the room. Then the security staffs can give the permission from their computer to the robot for UV disinfection. Then the robot autonomously go to the corresponding room and it will start the UV disinfection procedure 2-3 as I explained in the “DISINFECTION SYSTEM” and the UV disinfection system will starts only after the security procedures. After the UV disinfection process its automatically back to their charging point and wait for the next cycle. And if there is any requirement of UV disinfection at any room the staffs can send the UV disinfection starting command to the Corresponding I robot.

Like this example the I robo can used in the work station. For smaller workstation only one unit is required. As like the hospitals wider the area will increases the requirement of robot units. During the working time the robots will rest at it charging points. And after the work time The robots request for permissions to the security staffs by sending request to the corresponding computer which is on monitoring by the security staffs to start disinfection process on the workstation. The staffs can check the presence of workers on the office, Rooms, Workstation…etc. Only after getting the permission the robot will leave the charging station and it will go to the each rooms and areas allotted to the robots which is part of the work station and perform the UV disinfection procedure 2-5 as I explained in the “DISINFECTION SYSTEM”. If the workers is present after the working time the staffs can decline the request and manually give commands to robots to start disinfection from the computer that is monitoring the all I Robo units in the corresponding company. Also the I Robo control system can connect into the head of the workstation through the I Robo application. So all the notifications and reports from the I Robo is also send to the head. Also they can control the all robot units from their phone or tab.

Like these examples the robot can be used in multiple area.