MeD robot to serve patients, hospital staff

Visakhapatnam: This robot can read body temperature, serve medicines and food to the patients in the hospital sans any need for human contact.

Meet 'MeD' robot, a thoughtful invention of the Diesel Loco Shed (DLS) to intensify its combat against the pandemic and assist the Divisional Railway Hospital management in carrying out their day-to-day duties without any element of risk.

With the main focus on 'contactless' service, the newly developed robot aids in assisting hospital management as well as providing multiple services to the Covid-19 patients.

After extensive trials followed by demonstrations, MeD robot is all set to showcase its skills in serving the patients at the hospital.

Equipped with a remote-controlled driving unit, two-MP HD night vision cameras with speaker facility and a sensor-based hand sanitiser unit, MeD robot comes with 1 KVA battery backup for driving the motor and the camera.

Doctors and medical staff now heave a sigh of relief as they can stay away from the risk of contracting the infection while utilising the service of the robot.

A unique mobile App has been developed to operate the robot as it is supported with sensors. With this, the robot can read the body temperature of the patients and transmit the data to the mobile phone. In case of any abnormal reading, the MeD robot will also alert the hospital staff by raising an alarm.

Elaborating further about the robot, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Diesel) Santosh Kumar Patro says that it took 10 days for the team to develop the robot. "It has a remote-control drive unit to move in all directions. The communication between patient, doctor and nursing staff can be monitored from a mobile phone or a desktop," he says.

Divisional Railway Manager, Waltair Division, Chetan Kumar Shrivastava terms the invention as a useful tool for a contactless monitoring and to avoid the spread of infection among the medical staff.