While the entire world is busy developing innovations and robotic solutions to battle the novel coronavirus, a group of engineering students from Kannur in Kerala has come up with a pathbreaking discovery in the healthcare sector. The team has developed a robot that can fetch food and medicine to corona patients. Named Nightingale-19, the robot is currently deployed at the District Coronavirus Centre in Kannur.
Patients in isolation can communicate with doctors and, in urgent cases, with relatives too using the robot. Nightingale-19, the robot is developed in collaboration with State Healthcare Ministry. The uniqueness of the robot is that it is simple to operate. The robot, which is of great help to healthcare professionals, is built by students and staff of Vimal Jyoti Engineering College, Chemperi.
The payload capacity of this remote-controlled robot is 25 kg. It can distribute medicine, food and water to 15 people in one go. The robot, which can travel up to one kilometre, will reach each room. Nightingale-19 will have a great role to play in the coming days when more people return to Kerala from abroad. Vimal Jyothi College authorities are trying to teach students in other institutions also to build the robot to act during emergency.
