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Being caught in a red zone did not deter Mayank Barsainya and Kshitij - two final year B.Tech students of the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun- from programming a fully automated sanitiser device-cum-robot to deal with the pandemic.
Barsainya told BusinessLine that the device was developed in 10 days. “I am living in a red zone (at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh). Though healthcare workers, district administration and the people use mask and sanitisers, I felt that a fully automated sanitisation system was the need of the hour at least for spraying disinfectant in isolation ward and for monitoring the patient,” he said.
“Development of the system was a challenge as we had to make do with the available materials as shops were closed. The basic prototype of the device – to control movement of the Bot in real time and spraying of disinfectant – is ready and has been tested. We are now working on the next level of the device.”
“We first built the robot for a Corona patient in an isolation ward for delivering essential stuff like food, medicine and sanitisation system for monitoring patients on live streaming through camera. We developed an android app (Hosporobot) instead of an RC remote; and managed to get most of the processing job done on the android side. This not only proved to be cost effective, but requirement of computer hardware was also fell. It cost us less than ₹15,000 to build the prototype (including development set up).”
Kshitij said: “For building the next level of the system we need advanced processors and cameras, contactless sensors. These are not available in the shops here. We have sought permission to source the material from outside. Once developed, the robot could be used to detect violation of social distancing norms; it would trigger an alarm, send a notification to the administration if people fail to wear the mask.”
The duo developed the system using basic programming (java, android, c embedded) and open source hardware microcontroller instead of microprocessor for reducing cost. “We will be integrating with AI and Machine Learning in the next level and deploy the app on the cloud,” he said.
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