An Ultra-violet sterilization robot for

disinfection to fight with COVID-19

Abstract —The role of mobile robots for cleaning and sanitation purposes is increasing
worldwide. Disinfection and hygiene are two integral parts of any safe indoor environment, and
these factors become more critical in COVID-19-like pandemic situations. Door handles are
highly sensitive contact points that are prone to be contamination. Automation of the door-
handle cleaning task is not only important for ensuring safety, but also to improve efficiency.
This work proposes an AI-enabled smart solution for automating cleaning tasks through a
Human Support Robot (HSR) as well as fully autonomous. The overall cleaning process involves
mobile base motion, obstacle detection, and control of the HSR manipulator for the completion
of the cleaning tasks. The detection part exploits a sensor-based technique to identify human
presence and obstacle detection. Robot also perform the additional task like medicine
dispensing, Voice announcement.

Keywords: HSR; door handle cleaning; human service robot; cleaning; object detection; deep
learning

Introduction

The absolute best way of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is to just not get coronavirus in
the first place. By now, you’ve (hopefully) had all of the strategies for doing this drilled into
your skull—wash your hands, keep away from large groups of people, wash your hands, stay
home when sick, wash your hands, avoid travel when possible, and please, please wash your
hands.

To prevent the spread of coronavirus (and everything else) through hospitals, keeping surfaces
disinfected is incredibly important, but it’s also dirty, dull, and (considering what you can get
infected with) dangerous. And that’s why it’s an ideal task for autonomous robots.

UV disinfecting technology has been around for something like a century, and it’s commonly
used to disinfect drinking water. You don’t see it much outside of fixed infrastructure because
you have to point a UV lamp directly at a surface for a couple of minutes in order to be effective,
and since it can cause damage to skin and eyes, humans have to be careful around it. Mobile
UVC disinfection systems are a bit more common—UV lamps on a cart that a human can move
from place to place to disinfect specific areas, like airplanes. For large environments like a
hospital with dozens of rooms, operating UV systems manually can be costly and have mixed
results—humans can inadvertently miss certain areas, or not expose them long enough.

UVD Robots spent four years developing a robotic UV disinfection system, which it started
selling in 2018. The robot consists of a mobile base equipped with multiple lidar sensors and an
array of UV lamps mounted on top. To deploy a robot, you drive it around once using a
computer. The robot scans the environment using its lidars and creates a digital map. You then
annotate the map indicating all the rooms and points the robot should stop to perform
disinfecting tasks.

After that, the robot relies on simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) to navigate, and it
operates completely on its own. It’ll travel from its charging station, through hallways, up and
down elevators if necessary, and perform the disinfection without human intervention before
returning to recharge. For safety, the robot operates when people are not around, using its sensors
to detect motion and shutting the UV lights off if a person enters the area.

It takes between 10 and 15 minutes to disinfect a typical room, with the robot spending 1 or 2
minutes in five or six different positions around the room to maximize the number of surfaces
that it disinfects. The robot’s UV array emits 20 joules per square meter per second (at 1 meter
distance) of 254-nanometer light, which will utterly wreck 99.99 percent of germs in just a few
minutes without the robot having to do anything more complicated than just sit there. The
process is more consistent than a human cleaning since the robot follows the same path each
time, and its autonomy means that human staff can be freed up to do more interesting tasks, like
interacting with patients.
Literature Survey
 IEEE Papers
Sr. Paper / Publication Author Year
No.
1. An Ultra-violet sterilization robot for Pacharawan Chanprakon ; Tapparat 2019
disinfection. Sae-Oung ; Treesukon
Treebupachatsakul ;
2. The Concept of a Textronic System Ewa Lada-Tondyra ; Adam Jakubas 2018
Limiting Bacterial Growth.

3. Control systems challenges in energy A. Agung Julius ; Shayla M. 2010

efficient portable UV based water sterilizer. Sawyer

4. Studies on Liposome-encapsulated- Jinglan Hong ; Masahiro Otaki 2012

chemical Actinometer in UV-disinfection
by Low Pressure UV Lamp: Bio-chemical
Actinometer in UV-Disinfection
5. The development of a pulsed UV-light air M. Maclean ; J.G. Anderson ; S.J. 2004
disinfection system and its application in MacGregor ; J.W. Mackersie
university lecture theatres
6. Monitoring of ultraviolet light sources for G. Knight 2004
water disinfection.

7. Experience based domestic environment Han-Gyeol Kim ; Jeong-Yean Yang 2014

and user adaptive cleaning algorithm of a ; Dong-Soo Kwon
robot cleaner.
8. Strategy for cleaning large area with Seohyun Jeon ; Minsu Jang ; Daeha 2013
multiple robots. Lee ; Chang-Eun Lee ; Young-Jo
Cho
9. Dynamic coverage path planning and Liang Yuming ; Wen Ruchun ; 2011
obstacle avoidance for cleaning robot based Zhang Zhenli ; Zhu Junlin
on behavior.
10. Multiple robots task allocation for cleaning Seohyun Jeon ; Minsu Jang ; Daeha 2015
a large public space. Lee ; Young-Jo Cho ; Jaeyeon Lee
Problem Definition
To Design and Develop an Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and sterilization robot that kills germs
in the environment by decomposing their DNA structures, thus preventing and reducing the
spread of viruses, bacteria and other harmful microorganisms and dispense medicine to
COVID19 patients.

Purpose
The purpose is to develop a smart system for detecting and forecasting PM2.5 values using LoRa
and LSTM. Being of low power and long range, it satisfies the requirements of future IoT
systems and provides a reliable reference for governmental work and people’s lifestyle when it
comes to air quality.

Goals and Objectives

The Goals and Objectives of the given system are as follows:

 To develop a robot for automatic and manual sanitization of Hospital and dispense
medicine to Covid-19 Patient.
 To design and develop an android, iOS and Web application for forecasting
environmental parameters.
 To develop a system that is capable of accurately predicting PM2.5 values for the next
few hours.
 To develop a system that assure extra safety for human being.

Features
 Strong sterilization and disinfection capabilities
 Large working space
 Unmanned operation
 disinfection rate of 99.99%
 Automatic Medicine Dispensing
Proposed Architecture

ESP32

Fig – Proposed Architecture

Software Required
 ESP32 Microcontroller
 Sonar sensors, Motion Sensor
 UV-C Light
 Geared Motor – 200RPM
 Servo Motor Based Arm
 Power Supply – (12V DC) – Battery
 Relay Modules

Hardware Required
 ESP32 Microcontroller
 Sonar sensors, Motion Sensor
  UV-C Light
 Geared Motor – 200RPM
 Servo Motor Based Arm
 Power Supply – (12V DC) – Battery
 Relay Modules

Area of Project
IOT, M2M

Algorithm Used
Default Left/Right Algorithm

Advantages
 Limited Constraints
 Shorter travel path
 Manual and Fully Autonomous Mode
 Time and labor savings
 Cost savings

Limitations
 Expensive for small Hospitals
 Slow speed of travel
 Long exposure needed to kill the virus.
 Harmful for Human Health

Conclusion

In general, remember that UVC requires long exposures with the appropriate system—if
exposure is long enough to kill a virus, it’s also harmful to you.

we believe robots should be created for the benefits they provide. Healthcare professionals and
researchers have already shown how UVC can kill microorganisms—its use must be combined
with a chemical cleaning process, with the appropriate UVC exposure time and with the
appropriate safety protections. UVC solutions that do not meet those criteria are not only
ineffective, they also add barriers to our real fight against COVID-19.

References

(1) Evaluation of an Ultraviolet C (UVC) Light-Emitting Device for Disinfection of High Touch Surfaces
in Hospital Critical Areas (Beatrice Casini & al, 2019)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6801766/
(2) Comparison of UV C light and chemicals for disinfection of surfaces in hospital isolation units.
(Andersen BM & al, 2006) https://europepmc.org/article/med/16807849
(3) CleanSlateUV (2020) https://cleanslateuv.com/healthcare
(4) UV Sterilization Robots – The Latest Infection Prevention Technology in Disinfecting Operating
Rooms (Meditek) https://www.meditek.ca/uv-sterilization-robots-infection-prevention-technology-
operating-rooms/
(5) UVC Disinfection, A comprehensive portfolio to meet your unique needs (Skytron)
https://www.skytron.com/products/infection-prevention/uvc-light-disinfection-robots/
(6) LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots, Intensity Matters (Xenex) https://www.xenex.com/our-
solution/lightstrike/
(7) ISO 15858:2016 UV-C Devices — Safety information — Permissible human exposure (International
Standards Organization, 2016) https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:15858:ed-1:v1:en
(8) About UVC (Klaran) https://www.klaran.com/klaran-university/about-uvc
(9) Ultraviolet radiation (Canada Occupational Health and Safety)
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/ultravioletradiation.html
(10) Office of risk management – UV exposure limits (University of Ottawa, 2020)
https://orm.uottawa.ca/my-safety/em-radiation/uv/exposure-limits
(11) Reduce Hospital Acquired Infections with the UV Disinfection Robot (Blue Ocean Robotics)
http://www.uvd-robots.com/