South Central Railway develops 'Rail-Bot' to provide better health care to COVID patients

In the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, the South Central Railway zone has developed a robotic device, "RAIL-BOT" (R-BOT) to assist in the functions of hospital management so that they can provide better health care to the COVID patients. The innovation is developed by Hem Singh Banoth, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Hyderabad Division, SCR and his team. The robot has received appreciation from the Zone's head, Gajanan Mallya, General manager, SCR.

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According to a press release from the South Central Railways, Mallya termed the innovation as a good achievement to strengthen medical care management, particularly in the prevailing Covid-19 Pandemic Virus situation. The R-BOT underwent extensive trial and demonstration before being deployed for use in Central Railway Hospital, Lallaguda, Secunderabad.

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About R-BOT

R-BOT is being used to provide medicines, medical accessories and to serve food to the patients, without any need for physical contact. Using this device will enable doctors, nurses and other support medical staff to stay away from the risk of contracting infections. The R-BOT is operated through a unique mobile application developed as part of the Innovation, supported by Wi-FI- facility. The R-BOT holds sensor-based features to read the body temperature of patients and transmit the same for display on Mobile phones.

It is capable of raising an alarm in case of any abnormally high-temperature readings so as to alert the Medics attending to the patients. The R-BOT acts as two-way audio and video communication with recording, facilitating smooth interaction between patients and doctors. It uses infrared technology with emergency Night lamp and night vision to enable communication even in complete darkness.

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Robots developed in other states 

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Jaipur-based company — Club First has developed robots to help the healthcare workers and to contain the spread of the virus. According to the Managing Director of Club First Bhuvanesh Mishra, the robot can do thermal screening and also identify if a person is wearing a mask or not. He further added that 95 per cent of the robot is made in India. "It is the world's first robot that is based on spine technology which helps robots balance anything it handles. The robot doesn't follow any line or magnetic path, it self-navigates," he added. 

A hospital in Bengaluru deployed the 'Mitra' robots to check and screen the patients for COVID-19 symptoms. According to reports, the robots are programmed to interact with people using facial and speech recognition. Further, if the patient's temperature is normal with no COVID-19 symptoms after screening, the robot prints an entry pass that has the screening result with their name and picture on it. 

Earlier, the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Cuttack has also developed a service robot to help the workers combat the virus.

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(With inputs from agency)