Boston Dynamics quadruped robot 'Spot' is being used for remote triage of new coronavirus infected persons



It was announced that the four-legged robot 'Spot' of the robot development company

Boston Dynamics, a subsidiary of Softbank, is already being used for remote triage of patients suspected of having a new coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

Boston Dynamics COVID-19 Response | Boston Dynamics
https://www.bostondynamics.com/COVID-19

Boston Dynamics' Spot robot is helping hospitals remotely treat coronavirus patients-The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/23/21231855/boston-dynamics-spot-robot-covid-19-coronavirus-telemedicine

The Boston Dynamics Spot is a quadruped robot that can walk even on rough terrain and can open doors etc. with its mounted arm. Spot has attracted a lot of attention because of its characteristic movement and appearance, as well as its ability.

You can understand what kind of robot Spot is by reading the following article.

The commercial sale of Kimoi and the topical quadruped robot `` Spot '' finally started, and an eerie promotion movie is also released-GIGAZINE



Because of the concern that COVID-19 will also infect healthcare professionals, attention is being focused on technologies that can “reduce contact between healthcare professionals and COVID-19 infected individuals”. Under such circumstances, one of Harvard Medical School Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, received a situation in which one-sixth of its employees were infected with COVID-19 within a week. We started remote triage with Spot equipped with iPad.

Spot equipped with iPad looks like this. Not only can the patient be guided remotely, but the video communication on the iPad allows doctors to ask questions while observing the patient's condition.



According to Boston Dynamics, the use of Spot not only reduces the infection rate of medical personnel, but also suppresses the wear of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves.

Boston Dynamics has stated that it wants to support the COVID-19 problem regardless of its hardware and software, and that it is working closely with Canadian self-propelled robot developer

Clearpath Robotics . That.

The project currently under development is to implement a function to remotely kill the virus on the surface of objects such as hospital tents and subway stations by using technology that can remove virus particles such as UV-C lights. Boston Dynamics commented that he was working on it. Furthermore, as future goals, he said that he is planning to implement a body temperature / respiration rate measurement system using a thermal camera, a pulse rate measurement system using an RGB camera, and a method of measuring oxygen saturation by some method. .



in Hardware, Posted by darkhorse_log