Practical use of robots and related technologies in counteraction to COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Traditionally, robotics mainly relates to activities which are described as DDD – Dull, Dirty, Dangerous. COVID-19 pandemic has turned to DDD many of common human activities – especially in medical care sphere. Significantly more in demand and more dangerous for the personnel became such mass jobs as disinfection, quarantine control, infected patients' treatment, and number of other crucial services. This transformation highlighted practical abilities of various kinds of service robots. An unexpected application was found for wheel- and caterpillar-mounted platforms, collaborative robots, unmanned autonomous ground and aerial delivery vehicles, etc. in helping healthcare workers and emergency services, while over a half of humankind found itself under contamination threat and quarantined. In the article, the authors inspected and summarized various organizations’ experience and practices undertaken to apply existing robotics solutions to prevent COVID-19 spreading. Considering complexity of such tasks and break-up of global supply chains, the use of mature (or at least tested) solutions which can be rapidly transformed to new applications is deemed the most feasible approach. The authors suppose, as of now, there are no reasonable prerequisites for identifying a leader of response to the pandemic among robotics companies, however, those players who is able to define and enter the advantageous emerging market segment, acquire good chances of business success.