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From cleaning floors to keeping patients' company, these robots are helping doctors fight coronavirus

Around 10 robots of Milagrow are already in operation in several hospitals in Delhi NCR including Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals and Fortis Memorial Research Institute.

April 23, 2020 / 09:22 PM IST
 
 
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The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, is testing Gurgaon-based Milagrow's robots that can sanitise floors, assist doctors, remind patients to take medicines and even help bored patients in isolation wards to make calls to their relatives.

These robots come handy as health and sanitation staff working in COVID-19 wards in hospitals are at constant risk of contracting the virus.

AIIMS authorities are making sure that Milagrow's iMap 9 floor disinfecting robot is reliable in destroying COVID spores using sodium hypochlorite solution.

The robot can navigate and sanitise the floors without any human intervention.

"AIIMS is going to test the robot for a month in real conditions, based on their satisfaction, they may deploy these devices," said Rajeev Karwal, Founder Chairman of Milagrow.

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AIIMS is also testing Milagrow's Humanoid robot - that enables doctors to monitor and interact with contagious COVID-19 patients remotely with no person-to-person contact, thereby significantly reducing the transmission risk. The Humanoid can navigate around the ward independently and record the activities in high definition video and audio.

The humanoid robot offers eight hours of battery life, it can travel about 2.9 km per hour, is 92 cms tall, has more than sixty sensors, one 3D and one HD camera, and a 10.1" display screen.

Demand for robots shoots up

Around 10 robots of Milagrow are already in operation in several hospitals in Delhi NCR including Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals and Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon.

It's not just hospitals, Milagrow said it is seeing a massive surge in enquiries of its products from facility management companies and hospitality industry.

Karwal said he is seeing 300-400 percent jump in enquiries.

"The market was quite small. The sales of surface cleaning robots could be about 10,000 units per year, many large MNCs have come and left, due to lack of demand for these products," Karwal said.

The company sells the surface cleaning robot starting Rs 75,000 per unit.

Logistics issues

"Due to lockdown, we have only been able to deliver in Gurugram and Delhi; for the rest of India we are having difficulty as courier services are yet to resume operations fully," Karwal said.

Karwal said the rise in demand is due to shortage of workers, strict social distancing norms and disinfection procedures adopted in hospitals, hotels and offices.

Milagrow developed the entire software and sources 40 percent of components locally, the remaining components such as IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), sensors, actuators are imported from South Korea, Japan, China and Israel. The company assembles the final product in India. It has the capacity to assemble about 10,000 units per month.

"We are selling from our stocks available with us, we are unable to import any components, due to non-availability of logistics," Karwal said.

Karwal, a veteran of India's consumer electronic industry had headed Indian operations of consumer electronic companies such as Electrolux and Philips. He founded Milagrow in 2007. The company diversified into domestic robotics in 2012.

Viswanath Pilla
Viswanath Pilla is a business journalist with 14 years of reporting experience. Based in Mumbai, Pilla covers pharma, healthcare and infrastructure sectors for Moneycontrol.
first published: Apr 23, 2020 06:56 pm

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