Fighting against the coronavirus using CAN

The robots by UVD robots (Denmark) are deployed in hospitals to disinfect rooms and equipment such as patient beds. They use embedded CAN networks.

Already in February, the self-driving disinfection robots were shipped to a number of hospitals in China to help fight the Sars‑CoV‑2 virus. This happened after Sunay Healthcare Supply had signed an agreement with the Danish company UVD Robots. With ultraviolet light, the robot can disinfect and kill viruses and bacteria autonomously, effectively limiting the spread of coronaviruses without exposing hospital staff to the risk of infection.

Through Sunay Healthcare Supply’s partners in China, the robots have been deployed in all Chinese provinces. “With this agreement, more than 2 000 hospitals have the opportunity to ensure effective disinfection, protecting both their patients and staff,” said Su Yan, CEO of Sunay Healthcare Supply, a medical equipment supplier to the Chinese market.

Sold in more than 40 countries, UVD Robots is already delivering its self-driving disinfection robots to hospitals in other parts of Asia in addition to healthcare markets in Europe and the United States. The concentrated UV‑C light emitted by the robots as they drive has a germicidal effect that removes virtually all airborne viruses and bacteria on the surfaces of a room.

The development of the UVD robot started in 2014, when a group of Danish hospitals demanded a far more effective way of reducing infection rates in hospitals. The collaboration between bacteriologists, virologists, and hospital staff, and robot developers, designers, and engineers from Blue Ocean Robotics led to a market introduction in 2018. Claus Risager, CEO of Blue Ocean Robotics and Chairman of the Board of UVD Robots said: “We are helping solve one of the biggest problems of our time, preventing the spread of bacteria and viruses with a robot that saves lives in hospitals every day.”

The robot needs less than a quarter of an hour to disinfect a room. It moves to half a dozen positions in the room to kill the viruses. The robot’s UV array emits 20 joule per square meter per second (at 1 meter distance) of 254‑nanometer light. Some of the internally electrical devices communicate via CAN, confirmed Camilla Harkjær Frederiksen from UVD Robots.

hz