At Tsinghua University in China, Professor Zheng Gangtie, together with students, has designed a robot that will be able to perform examinations on patients infected with the coronavirus.
The purpose of the robot is to reduce the risk of doctors examining infected patients to become ill themselves.
- Doctors are very brave. But this virus is far too contagious. We can use robots to perform the most dangerous tasks, says Zheng Gangtie, a researcher at Tsinghua University.
The robot, which is more like a robot arm on wheels, is designed to perform ultrasound, take mouth exams and other examinations done in conjunction with the corona virus.
Since the robot is equipped with cameras, doctors do not even have to be in the same room, not even the same city.
The team has only designed two robots so far, one of which is in the hospital in Wuhan, where doctors will receive training. If everything goes as planned, the robot can be used on actual corona infected patients within a few days.