Hyderabad: Robot that can deliver medicines to patients

Hyderabad: A team of graduates – Mohammed Ashfaq Ahmed, Syed Abdul Bari and Mirza Salman Baig – is putting to better use a robot they developed during their student days at ISL Engineering College, Chandrayangutta. Speaking to The Hans India, Mohammed Ashfaq Ahmed, an employee at Research Centre Imarat Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Hyderabad, said they wanted to do their bit as Coronavirus was raging across the nation.

"This robot was made as our engineering major project in 2019. The robot was ready within 20 days. We thought of pitching this for restaurants. However, seeing the current situation, we thought this would be better for use by medical teams. This can also be used to provide eatables to patients," adds Ashfaq Ahmed. The robot is capable of delivering food, medicines and many other essentials to the patients at hospitals. It can minimise risks to doctors and nurses to an extent, thereby obviating the need for manpower for some specific tasks. The robot is controlled via a mobile app, either using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. A camera fitted on the robot will help the controller to view what is going on and also track the robot.

The robot is developed with a budget of Rs 25,000. Meanwhile, their invention has already caught the eye of state government officials. Seeing their post on Twitter, KT Rama Rao, Minister of IT, Telangana, tweeted saying, "Request @Jayesh_ranjan to get this idea examined" to which Jayesh Ranjan, the IT and Industries Principal Secretary, further replied, "Excellent! Can it be deployed as a demo in one of the hospitals."

"We have to conduct demonstration. We will work on it once we receive green signal from officials and hope it would be used in hospitals," said Ahmed.