Applications of Healthcare Robots in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, there is a remarkable demand for robots, especially in the clinical sector. SARS-CoV-2 mainly propagates due to close human interactions and contaminated surfaces, and hence, maintaining social distancing has become a mandatory preventive measure. This generates the need to treat patients with minimal doctor-patient interaction. Introducing robots in the healthcare sector protects the frontline healthcare workers from getting exposed to the coronavirus as well as decreases the need for medical personnel as robots can partially take over some medical roles. The aim of this paper is to highlight the emerging role of robotic applications in the healthcare sector and allied areas. To this end, a systematic review was conducted regarding the various robots that have been implemented worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic to attenuate and contain the virus. The results obtained from this study reveal that the implementation of robotics into the healthcare field has a substantial effect in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2, as it blocks coronavirus propagation between patients and healthcare workers, along with other advantages such as disinfection or cleaning.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

A global emergency (COVID-19) was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 on January 30, 2020. The first signs of this pandemic were initially witnessed in Wuhan city, China, in December 2019 with 266 cases [1]. Later on, the confirmed novel coronavirus cases increased tenfold in less than a month, from 100,000 in the first week of March to more than one million on 2nd April, while more than 52,000 deaths have been reported across the world [2]. This COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected almost all countries worldwide, placed great strain on healthcare facilities, and resulted in economic crises. The number of people infected by COVID-19 so far is reported up to 235 million cases worldwide. Frontline health workers have a higher risk of getting infected, as they are in close contact with patients [3]. This situation has motivated many researchers to develop robotic solutions for healthcare personnel in order to serve patients effectively without getting infected [4].

Healthcare facilities play a vital role in tackling pandemics. Robotic applications are of paramount importance in such situations as they replicate human actions in unsafe environments, thereby minimizing human-to-human contact [5]. Most of the countries have already deployed various robots to assist human staff because of the drastic increase in deaths among frontline workers [6]. It is feasible to incorporate robots in the clinical sector, as robotic appliances were employed in various industries since the mid-2000s, making them readily available for advancements and utilization [7]. One such example of a health crisis was the Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, during which The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) organized workshops with scientists and researchers who used robots in such contagious outbreaks [8]. Figure 1 depicts the market size of medical robots over time. Various unpredictable events such as epidemics are expected to contribute to the growth of this market by 40% from 2019 to 2022.

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Technologically advanced countries were able to quickly deploy a variety of robots which have the potential for sterilizing, delivering medications, measuring vital signs, etc. [9]. Most economically poor countries were not able to afford these advanced facilities, as there are various constraints apart from purchasing robots, which include their maintenance, training, and integration [10]. The increase in demand for these robots led to high consumption rates, eventually leading to scarcity [11]. It is also predicted that physical distancing measures may need to be in place intermittently until 2022 [12]. Some scientists have cautioned that there may be resurgences of COVID-19 for years to come; therefore, the development of these medical robots for protection has become a necessary measure [13]. Furthermore, this COVID-19 disaster can attest to the fact that mundane robots can operate side by side with frontline healthcare workers in the slightest chance of a life-threatening situation [14]. According to Figure 1, the market size is expected to reach over 9 billion in 2022, attesting to the massive increments over the last few years.

The present study highlights the various contributions of robotics in healthcare and, particularly, COVID-19 pandemic. Section 1 illustrates the specifications of healthcare robots; Section 2 covers all types of healthcare state-of-the-art robots used for combating the pandemic; Section 3 describes the classification and operation of various robots; Section 4 integrates the results drawn from this study; Section 5 is a review of what can be done to make current robots more efficient and reliable. The objective of this study is therefore to enhance our understanding about the effective use of robotic technologies for tackling these situations, as well as to suggest potential solutions for future endeavours.

2. Methodology

The motivation behind choosing this topic was to better our understanding about the strategies by which COVID-19 has been effectively mitigated, particularly by employing robots in the healthcare sector. Our objective is therefore to identify robots that can be implemented in the healthcare sector which can be used easily and improve the quality of treatment. To address this topic, an extensive and comprehensive literature review was conducted to compile published research papers pertinent to the topic of COVID-19 and robotics, by following the PRISMA guidelines. Based on our inclusion/exclusion criteria, any duplicate, inaccessible papers were removed, and only those papers written in English between 1998 and 2021 were included; collectively, 92 eligible studies were included in the meta-analysis.

Qualitative and quantitative data were assessed to obtain relevant information which was included in this study. Bibliometric analysis, as shown in Figure 2, was performed by retrieving relevant papers and detecting associations among COVID-19 and robots, the latter of which were of higher importance in terms of potential and performance. For the bibliometric analysis, numerical subsets that provided satisfactory results were chosen. The main keywords in the title and abstract of the retrieved papers were extracted and compiled, and their cooccurrence was graphically represented (Figure 2). This graphical representation provides significant information on how different subheadings are closely interlinked within the context of healthcare robotics. The greater the number of cooccurrent words of a topic, the greater their importance, as it highlights and categorizes robots (such as socially assistive robots or surgical robots) which have been implemented in the healthcare sector and relevant papers have been published, along with their corresponding operation and technological application.

[figure omitted; refer to PDF]

3. Robots Serving in Healthcare Environments

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, there was an increase in usage in robotic applications in the clinical sector. Many professionals are jointly working towards the development of robots that ease the workload of healthcare professionals [16, 17]. Remarkable advancements in the field of robotics have been observed recently. Most tech giants, as well as universities, have made it possible to implement robotic applications that work alongside frontline healthcare workers in order to combat this pandemic [18, 19].

4. Classification and Operation of Medical Robots

The implementation of robotics in the field of healthcare presents countless advantages on its own, and especially in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic that has befallen us, we are presented with probably no better alternative than the introduction of robots to attenuate the problems associated with this pandemic [20]. We also provide a brief review on the types of medical robots and their operations and discuss the medical tasks that can be fulfilled by these robotic applications in this section.

4.1. Disinfecting/Spraying Robots

The use of portable robots for cleaning and disinfecting objects is increasing rapidly around the world. Cleansing and cleanliness are necessarily important for safe indoor/outdoor conditions in the case of contagious diseases like COVID-19 [21]. Primary source contacts like door handles and elevators represent the main sources for the transmission of such viruses through direct contact. Therefore, an automated cleaning task not only ensures safety but also improves effectiveness. This category proposes an AI-enabled structure for automating the cleaning process through a Human Support Robot (HSR) [22]. The general cleaning process includes cleaning the premises, door handles, and control of the HSR, for fulfilling the requirements of the cleaning undertakings. The identification part uses machine learning in order to view the space and give proper directions to the robot. Control between the spraying and cleaning is created in the robotic operating system. The control module utilizes the data gained from the discovery module to create an assignment/operational space for the robot, alongside assessing the ideal situation to drive the controllers [23].

UVD-bot is one such example of disinfection robot. It is a self-driven germicidal robot which uses ultraviolet light (UVC-254 nm). UVC light used in this robot is effective against the coronavirus as it disrupts the DNA base pairing, hence rendering the virus harmless. The result, of which it can perform the sanitation of a room within 10 minutes, is 100 percent autonomous and extremely efficient in disinfection. The robot is primarily used to carry out sanitization of hospital premises, thus preventing the direct contact of individuals from the contaminated zones [24]. Moreover, its operational advantages include its simplicity of usage, so it can be operated by anyone without any advance technical skills [25].

Then, we have a robot called iMap9 (Milagrow iMap9) which utilizes a more conventional method for disinfection. The iMap9 makes use of NaOCl (sodium hypochlorite) solution to decontaminate the surface with COVID-19-carrying spores, following up to the advice by the ICMR. The performance parameters can be described as with a working time of 60-130 minutes upon full charge. Its operation can be managed through a mobile application [26]. It can perform completely automated disinfection of the floor. HEPA filter present inside the robot is used to remove 99.97% of all particulate matter smaller than 0.3 μm which is very effective. An advantage of this bot is that it incorporates high-precision sensors due to which live mapping is ensured so that no spot is left uncleaned, thereby greatly reducing infection rates.

4.2. Hospitality Robot

The role of receptionist and nursing robots has been increasing rapidly due to the pandemic which has led to an increase in fatality rates among healthcare workers [27]. The above-mentioned roles are accomplished by three different types of robots: (i) receptionist robot, (ii) medical server, and (iii) nurse robot [28]. The job of a receptionist robot is to gather information and assist patients. The medical server obtains and stores the required data about the patients on the medical server and provides summaries of the saved data to human caretakers via a web interface [29, 30]. The main functions of nurse robot include serving medicines and food to the patients [31, 32]. This would prevent the hospital staff from getting in contact with infected patients. Therefore, to minimize the contact between human nurses and receptionists, many delivery and monitoring robots were deployed during this pandemic.

Sona 2.5 is an example of hospitality robot. It was designed using smart obstacle avoidance technology, it also includes a vision camera for face detection, and it can carry a load up to 15 kg due to which contactless delivery is possible. Sona 2.5 was originally designed as a restaurant service robot, but its functioning was reprogrammed to adequately meet the needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, its function also includes managing the delivery of medicines and food to the affected patients, as well as monitoring their body temperature [33].

As per a research paper by Malik et al. [34], KARMI-Bot is a similar multipurpose robot with a load-carrying capacity up to 25 kg. The robot can also have additional capabilities such as self-charging [34]. Primarily, it has the features to analyse and map the vacant ward and further perform tasks such as delivering food and medicines on schedule to the particular patient, video conferencing with doctors, and auto self-sterilization. On the other hand, the primary objective of Co-bot (Corona Combat Robot) is to serve food and water to the COVID-19 patients and also bring back empty trays or plates. It has a load-carrying capacity of 20 kilograms and can be used to serve several people in one go [35].

Rail bot (R-Bot) serves the required roles with the additional advantage that it can also be operated in complete darkness due to its infrared capabilities and the presence of a night lamp with a battery life of about 6 hours. R-Bot is operated using a mobile application via Wi-Fi; it also supports two-way audio and video communication thereby aiding doctors to monitor their patients with ease [36]. It is equipped with thermal sensors that can map the temperature reading of a person and alert the appropriate personnel when someone with a temperature higher than the average is detected. The purpose of this robot is to distribute medical goods and food from a safe distance. R-Bot can carry a load of up to 80 kg and move at a speed of 1 km/hr.

Wegree Robot as per Podpora et al. [37] aids the healthcare workers by reducing their contact with potential COVID-19 carriers and assisting patients effectively. The robot instructs visitors to perform tasks like sanitizing their hands, taking temperature readings using a noncontact thermometer linked to the robot, and wearing a protective face mask. The robot also instructs people about the various guidelines that they should follow such as making use of phone and email for trivial matters and encourages people to stay at home.

A small humanoid robot called Pepper is being used in several fields during this pandemic. Pepper robot weighs 28 kg and has a battery life of up to 12 hours; it has the capability of communicating in 15 different languages. Pepper uses facial recognition and natural language processing to connect with people and even understand their emotions; this ability has further use in detecting if the visitors are wearing masks and raising an alarm on its built-in screen if not [38]. The robot can also assist the doctors in communicating with their patients remotely, thereby helping healthcare workers to avoid contact for minor problems; it has been also applied in eldercare homes in UK, shopping malls, and hotels [39].

Starship Robot distances, a self-driving delivery robot, is recommended for long transportation distances, since it can transport goods over a 4-mile radius. This robot has completed over 1 million deliveries over 20000 miles, which further adds to its reputability. The contents being transported are safely secured in the deck of the robot, which stays mechanically locked throughout the journey and can only be unlocked by the recipient via aforementioned app. It represents an economical and energy-efficient way for contactless delivery of goods, parcels, groceries, and food that can be shipped directly from service points. The robot moves at a steady and slow pace and can safely navigate across obstacles and moving objects and thus poses no threats to bystanders. The transportation status can be monitored remotely through an app [40].

There is the PillPick robot which can package 1000 doses of medicine per hour, which would take a technician over 10 hours to complete. The robot aids the hospital pharmacies to increase picking, packaging, and dispensing efficiency. It is a pharmacy automation system which is capable of unit-dose packaging, storage, and dispensing of medicines. It has high density storage and operates along with a few other robots for refilling tasks. The advantage of this robot is that it helps to eliminate human contact, as well as human error occurring due to wrong medications given to patients, thereby increasing patients’ safety [41].

A research study [42] covers Mitra robot that makes use of the speech and facial recognition algorithm along with its automated navigational ability and thermal sensors to screen the healthcare personnel and visitors to check for symptoms of COVID-19 such as high fever or cold. It performs the screening task very effectively. The robot carries out the task of screening each and every person in its vicinity, including patients and visitors who are present in the hospital. This allows the healthcare professionals and others to be wary of potential COVID-19 carriers, while simultaneously allowing the affected people to obtain much needed medical help, thus containing the spread of this infectious disease onto others.

Another robot called Sayabot is equipped with thermal sensors through which it measures the temperature readings of visitors and advises those with a high temperature reading to consult doctors and take necessary precautions. This robot is primarily being used to spread awareness about the threat of COVID-19. Sayabot advises people to perform proper social distancing and informs them about other guidelines with the help of a built-in display screen. The robot also provides masks and sanitizer to visitors [43].

4.3. Teleoperation and Telepresence Systems

Teleoperation systems consist of a motion sensing device and collaborative dual-arm robot (YuMi, IRB 14000), through which the data of upper limb movement of the operator can be obtained and used to control the robot’s motion remotely. A pair of gloves is used to monitor the finger motions [44, 45]. Telepresence systems are similar to teleoperation, as they include VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) applications, allowing healthcare workers to monitor patients via two-way audio-visual communication. Usually, such robots have a capacitive touch screen fixed to the forepart of the robot. Here, the interaction of the patient and the healthcare staff is achieved through the audio/video conference system which is based on WebRTC (Web-Real-Time Communication) [46, 47]. In order to limit the contact between the patient and the doctor, the robot is equipped with voice recognition in order to communicate with the patient. Furthermore, to monitor the patient’s emotional state, a deep neural network is used [48, 49]. A small mobile robot assembled with a suitable sensor can be a potential solution in such a case. The given robot is expected to navigate itself through the premises and collect data of safe and unsafe environments which healthcare workers can use for assisting and locating infected people [50]. This process of 3D mapping is carried out by using a lightweight and a highly mobile self-sustaining robot which can be framed within the generic environment and mapping SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) problem [51]. Herein, the robot is programmed to move with six degrees of freedom in a three-dimensional environment. This is further complicated due to the limitations of the odometry information from the wheel encoders; the results of which can be unreliable due to the nature of hazardous premises. Therefore, if the signals from relative locations are limited, accurate range sensors, such as tilting laser range finders or other forms of motion sensors, can be used so that 3D mapping can be generated if movement between robots is limited [52].

Some telepresence robots that were implemented postpandemic are presented below.

(1) NIGA-BOT: a movable telepresence robot which can perform live video and audio conference calls between patients and doctors. This helps to eliminate the need for frequent interaction and aids with remote monitoring. It is equipped with an interactive display screen and speakers [53]

(2) Maitri: the main objective of this robot is to safeguard hospital staff and sanitation workers from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2. The robot stands at a height of 3.5 feet and has a liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen attached to it through which doctors and nurses can interact with patients remotely. It is equipped with Wi-Fi and can be operated using a smartphone to a range of up to 20 feet. It has very good locomotive capabilities as it can move in every direction. The battery can sustain the robot for up to eight hours after being charged. Maitri can also be used to dispense food and water to the patients because of its storage capabilities, thereby minimizing human contact [54]

(3) Zorabot is a Belgian-based software company which developed the Cruzr robot. This robot was deployed in hospitals and elderly care facilities which were in a complete lockdown phase. The robot can communicate in 53 different languages and can identify if someone is properly wearing a mask and count the number of people in a room as a result of its mounted camera and image processing capabilities. Thermal cameras allow the robot to measure the body temperature of visitors and take action accordingly. Additionally, the robot can be controlled remotely which allows doctors and nurses to monitor patients and operate it for disinfection duties [55]

4.4. Surgical Robots

Applying autonomy to surgery has been a continuous effort for engineers and medical researchers, since it promises various advantages such as mechanical precision, stability, and the ability to work in hazardous environments [56]. There are vast differences among surgical procedures, as a few of them are far easier to conduct, whereas others are highly complex. For example, autonomous cardiac ablation of the pulsating heart requires the involvement of robots because this operation cannot be completed effectively by the surgeon without relying on a surgical robot to introduce precise lesions in the heart [57, 58]. Therefore, during the pandemic, most surgical robots offer huge advantages, as they can be deployed to perform complex surgeries on COVID-19-affected patients and also reduce the excessive burden of the healthcare professionals [59].

4.5. Radiologist Robots

A radiologist is a person who interprets medical imaging to diagnose patients. A radiologist robot can effectively perform the same function [60]. This robot is equipped with computational imaging capabilities and makes use of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to make a diagnosis based on all available data [61]. It can also be used to perform X-rays and MRIs [62]. A radiologist robot is very advantageous, as it reduces the risk of healthcare professionals by preventing them from coming in contact with the harmful radiations emitted during the imaging cycles [63]. Currently, experts are working on an AI algorithm which can detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and is presumed to detect the coronavirus with up to 96% accuracy [64, 65].

4.6. Rehabilitation Robot

Rehabilitation robots, or rehab robots, serve the purpose of nursing injured or disabled patients back to their normal condition through assistive and therapeutic training. A typical case would be assisting a person to be able to walk again after an accident [66]. Different types of rehab robots are targeted to treat patients with various diseases, like those who are recovering from stroke, cerebral palsy, or other bodily injuries such as knee, ankle, upper and lower limbs, wrist, and elbow [67]. Most of the robots in this category are designed in a way that the children and elderly find them entertaining as they are designed with various AI functions that not only treat the patients but also keep them motivated; few of the functions include ability to understand facial emotions and ability to play games [68]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing use of telerehabilitation has been witnessed; in particular, rehab robots equipped with cameras and speakers are used for the purpose of clinical evaluation and monitoring from a distant location, hence further eliminating the need of jeopardizing the health of both patients and doctors [69].

5. Observation

In this article, we present a detailed study of medical robots that have been deployed in various healthcare crises over the past few years, ranging from the Ebola epidemic to the very recent COVID-19 pandemic. As it is shown in Figure 2, a drastic increase is anticipated in the market size of medical robots post-COVID-19 pandemic for various categories of robots used for disinfection, nursing, and teleoperation. These markets had a valuation of lower than 1 billion dollars in 2017, but this is expected to increase 3.8 times by 2027 [70].

As depicted in Figure 3, there is a desperate need for improvement in healthcare facilities worldwide, and in accordance with that, there are several significant studies which provide countless ways to upgrade the existing robots and make them more economical and reliable. Healthcare robots indulging in tasks of assisting children and elderly patients must have settings that are simple and easy to use [71]. Robot’s ergonomic and novel design should be reviewed, and its corresponding software has to be simplified, so as to make it cost-effective and reliable for usage. Therefore, a general modularization approach is needed for the implementation of these robotic devices. This would also reduce overall costs by standardizing the associated computer systems and sensors, thereby making them more homogeneous [72]. The current pandemic served as a catalyst for the healthcare sector, the latter of which should undergo a major technological advancement to encounter these uncertain situations and also improve its overall quality and efficiency.

[figure omitted; refer to PDF]

6. Conclusions

In this study, we presented a thorough overview of the various types of robots that are used in the clinical sector to perform tasks in SARS-CoV-2-contaminated zones. The aim of this study is to serve as an informative resource for the current advancements in the medical sector, which would prove highly beneficial to combat highly infectious diseases like COVID-19 on various forefronts. One limitation of this study is that while an effort was made to cover as many healthcare robot applications that have been used against COVID-19 as possible, it mainly focused on scientific publications, possibly leaving out novel industrial applications. The world of the healthcare sector, postpandemic, appears to be more reliant on robots in order to prevent human-to-human transmission. There was a huge demand for medical robots in developed markets due to their numerous advantages in functionality and ability to restrict the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The onset of use of robotics might only increase at a greater rate because of the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, many countries may increase their interest in robotic advancements to gain financial and medical stability along with better healthcare, which would lead to a drastic increase in the use of medical robots.

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