A team of robotics experts from Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Faculty of Engineering is in the midst of developing five robots that can disinfect and protect against the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Project leader Associate Professor Dr Wan Zuha Wan Hasan said the robots would be useful for a hospital’s Emergency Response Team to avoid infection to frontliners.
“For the first phase, these five robots will be tested in the campus grounds, such as lecture halls, residential colleges, office blocks, the UPM teaching hospital and high-risk areas,” he said.
Wan Zuha said for the second phase, they hoped to offer robotic services like disinfection, serving food and thermal imaging for public hospitals and healthcare providers if there were requests and funding from any interested parties.
“We are facing budget constraints in the development of the robots. We welcome anyone to help us upgrade the research project to the next level,” he said, adding that seven other researchers were involved in this project.
“We have acquired robotics construction supplies and services, collaborating with the university’s alumni company Innovatech Solution Enterprise,” said Wan Zuha.
Faculty of Engineering dean Professor Dr Nor Kamariah Nordin said the robots were modified from an existing robot used in an inter-university robot competition last year, which won second place in the Cooperative Robot Challenge category.
“The modification involves the addition of a disinfection system.
“Since the robotics team has been facing difficulties in acquiring equipment to build the robots during the Movement Control Order, they will design a disinfection system using existing equipment in the laboratory and also purchase them online if necessary,” she said.