Vietnam successfully develops housekeeping robot to aid Covid-19 fight

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) yesterday announced the successful pilot of NaRoVid1, a robot to clean and disinfect floors in hospitals, in the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases – Kim Chung facility (located in Dong Anh in Hanoi).

Robot NaRoVid 1 is being piloted in the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases – Kim Chung facility. (Photo: MOST)
Robot NaRoVid 1 is being piloted in the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases – Kim Chung facility. (Photo: MOST)

NaRoVid1 was developed by the National Center for Technological Progress in 2 weeks, answering MOST’s request.

The robot can work in isolation spaces to support health employees by using disinfectant to sanitize floors. Thanks to a special design, it can easily move to all spaces of a room to fulfill the task, followed by self-cleaning after leaving each room. This perfectly observes the Covid-19 infection control protocol.

Associate Prof. Dr. Mai Anh Tuan, head of the research team, revealed that the robot can carry 10 liters of disinfectant each time at the most to work continuously for 2 hours. Attached with a sensor, it can avoid obstacles on its way.

NaRoVid 1 can flexibly follow a programmed route and come back to the charging location when finished.

According to Tran Minh Quan, Deputy Director of the Outpatient Department in the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases – Kim Chung facility, the application of this robot can save much time of health employees while minimizing infection risks.

In addition, the liquid carrying capacity of NaRoVid 1 greatly reduces the times health workers need to refill disinfectant. In fact, thanks to this robot, they now only come to each room 3 times a day to add more liquid for the cleaning task happening every 30 minutes.

In the upcoming time, the research team will continue to upgrade this robot to work more effectively, before transferring this technology to manufacturers for mass production to meet the high demands of isolation areas in hospitals nationwide.

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