I would like to recommend that you cover a story on how AI robots have helped protect frontline medical workers in a major hospital in Shenzhen amid coronavirus outbreak because:
1. The COVID-19 cases top 95,000 with death cases rising to nearly 3,000 worldwide. South Korea, Italy and Iran have been worst hit by the outbreak outside China.
2. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that global shortage of medical equipment such as gowns and masks is leaving doctors and nurses “dangerously ill-equipped”.
3. AI robots, being deployed in hospitals, may be a powerful “weapon” the world needs to combat the coronavirus including helping prevent frontline medical workers from being infected.
The Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen (TPHS), the only designated hospital for treating COVID-19 in Shenzhen, a metropolis with a population of more than 12.5 million, has introduced an anti-epidemic intelligent robotic solution to combat the coronavirus.
AI robots are playing a key role. The UBTECH-developed robot trios, namely ATRIS, AIMBOT and Cruzr, are giving a helping hand to monitor body temperature, detect people without masks, spray medical alcohol and provide medical inquiries.
“Human staff have to take the temperature of each patient upon arrival at the fever clinic while the robots can monitor the temperature of up to 200 people per minute, which greatly improves efficiency and lowers the risk of medical worker infection,” said Liu Yue, Chief of the TPHS Fever Clinic.
Liu continued to note that the robots on the frontline can share the work pressure of the medical staff, and also cut the use of protective equipment at a time when they are in short supply.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) director-general Tedros Adhanom warned on Wednesday that shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gowns and masks could leave frontline health workers unprotected from the COVID-19 virus, which comes as the epicenter shifts from China to three nations on three different continents.
24/7 operations: AI robots as a powerful “weapon” against virus
It seems that a defense line has been built at the THPS front with AIMBOT, for indoor works, ATRIS, for outdoors and Cruzr for guide and information.
The robot fleet has freed medical personnel from repeated and time-consuming tasks such as temperature taking at the clinic door, mask wearing reminding as well as environmental disinfection.
Noticeably, ATRIS and AIMBOT can achieve long-distance (2.5-3.5m) non-contact human body temperature measurements over a large area, with an accuracy of ≤ ± 0.3℃, which meets the national standards for temperature monitoring equipment for epidemic prevention. Their technology supports the simultaneous temperature monitoring of up to 15 people, which is over 20 times more efficient than that of regular manual operation.
AI robots deployment in THPS- Video link: https://v.qq.com/x/page/
Mission Impossible
The anti-epidemic solution with a package of AI robots and 5G technologies has been developed by UBTECH Robotics, a renowned AI robot provider based in Shenzhen, in just 21 days after the outbreak.
Relatedly, the company announced on Thursday that it could realize the mass production of the anti-epidemic version of the robots in March. It reminds the world again of China’s manufacturing prowess after it built a hospital from scratch in Wuhan in just a dozen of days.
In addition to hospitals, the solution can also be deployed in transportation hubs, industrial parks and commercial districts, where detecting workload is heavy.
