Engineering students develop nursing Robot in COVID-19 treatment

There is a growing concern over the spread of the novel coronavirus among medical professionals and frontline healthcare workers. To address this issue, a group of Electrical Engineering students and faculty from AVIT (Aarupadai Veedu Institute of Technology) Chennai, Vinayaka Mission's Research Foundation (Deemed to be University) along with duo entrepreneurs Mr Premnath and Mr Subramanian have developed a robot called V2 Buddy at the 'Ganesan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre'. This helps to reduce contact between frontline healthcare nursing staff and COVID-19 patients.

V2 Buddy was today demonstrated at Vinayaka Mission's Super Speciality Hospital "VIMS" at Salem and deployed in Vinayaka Missions Medical Colleges at Salem, Puducherry and Karaikkal. V2 Buddy – the Nursing Robot can assist nursing interface by checking the body temperature level of COVID-19 patients, dispensing sanitizing hand rub, delivering medicines and food, enable the nursing staff to interact with COVID 19 patients remotely through video and audio interface from their nursing stations. This helps to minimize the nursing staff from getting exposed to infection.

This sophisticated nursing robot can be controlled remotely through an app installed on a smartphone by the nursing staff. A Voice-enabled Nursing Call facility is also made available through 'V2 Buddy Call' through which the Patients in isolation can speak to Nursing Staff in the Nursing Station whenever required for clinical support and counselling.

Mr Premnath, one of the developers said, "V2 Buddy was created after considering the inputs given by the medical and nursing teams of VIMS, the Super Speciality Hospital Unit of Vinayaka Mission Group. They provided guidance on the day-to-day operations and activities of nursing staff in an isolation ward which we attempt to enable through this robot."

Mr Subramanian, the co-creator explained, "The new age gizmo V2 Buddy will be operated using Bluetooth technology and remote sensors from a control console which will be in the hands of the nurse, who will be able to talk to the patient directly."

"The Ganesan Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (GIEC) at Vinayaka Mission provided us an ideal platform to build this robot with access to resources, technical support, working space and financial aid," said Prof. Dr L. Chitra - HOD Electrical and Electronics department, member of the steering committee for GIEC, AVIT Chennai and guide for nursing Robot project.

Dr Meenakshi Sundaram, Medical Director, of Vinayaka Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) said, "V2 Buddy is akin to a remote-controlled bomb disposal device, as it helps us achieve minimal contact from confirmed COVID-19 patients and still providing adequate care to them. We are glad that we have come up with this new age gizmo which is the need of the hour."

Commenting on this, Dr Ganesan, Chancellor, Vinayaka Mission Group said "The vision of this GIEC's Business Incubator is to identify & support potential entrepreneurs and students in developing Minimum Viable Products (MVP) thereby making their dream concept come true and essentially to curtail the import burden by indigenization of products in line with 'Make in India' vision of Government of India"

VMRF is planning to donate two of these nursing robots to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai and at the Indira Gandhi Government Hospital, Puducherry. The production and capacity of 'V2 Buddy' will be scaled up according to the demand in the market.