Autonomy Design and Development for an Ultraviolet-C Healthcare Surface Disinfection Robot

Abstract

Autonomous robots are a prime candidate for an ultraviolet-C lamp carrier. Due to their autonomy, disinfection can be carried without the need for human intervention, enabling a safe disinfection process without neither the risk of infection nor radiation. This research develops an autonomy software for healthcare surface disinfection robots. The autonomy itself is decomposed into three modular subsystems: Augmented Monte Carlo Localization based localization, Rapidly Exploring Random Tree* based path planning, and Spanning Tree Coverage based coverage path planning. The software is then tested in a simulated environment. The test results show that the developed software enables the sterilization of 53.82-77.55% out of all surfaces in the environment in 11.57-20.56 seconds per squared meters of the surface area of the environment.