MiddleMan, a robot in the COVID First-Line Treatment Centre (CFLTC) at Greenfield Stadium in Karyavattom.
Dhaliya Nazreen
MiddleMan Robot
Thiruvananthapuram: It's about one year, world's stability has been interrupted by the arrival of COVID-19. The situation is getting more cursed as disease is widely spread among health workers. To prevent from such a situation R&D GECB team from Government Engineering College Barton Hill, Thiruvananthapuram, came up with an innovative idea.
Yeah, it's a robot named "MiddleMan" which provides essential service to the patients without any physical contact with doctors or other health workers. We can find the service of this robot in the COVID First-Line Treatment Centre (CFLTC) at Greenfield Stadium in Karyavattom. Middleman is a remote-controlled robot that can act as a mediator between health workers and patients. This robot has a simple and well-confined structure so that it can be transported easily. But there is no compromise in its services to others. The most accentuate feature of this robot is that diagnosis of patients is possible by a video calling app named "MiddleMan", developed by GADS, a student start up registered under Technology Business Incubator at Government Engineering College Trivandrum, Barton Hill, which is already installed in the mobile phone and is placed in the robot itself. Other than this service, robot has a compartment to carry food, water or any other essential commodities, an oximeter to determine the amount of oxygen level and pulse rate, facilities for checking blood pressure and a hand sanitizer dispenser.
Team members with MiddleMan Robot
Nikhil Suresh, Abhijith S S, Arjun P, Reo Ashwin John and Gokul C M worked behind the scenes of this appreciable effort. And also Dr. Anish K John who is in charge of the Technology Business Incubator (TBI) and faculty from Department of Mechanical Engineering, Elizabeth Cheriyan, in charge of CERD and Head of Department (HoD) of Electrical and Electronics Department lending their hands to help these innovators for developing MiddleMan. The video calling app MiddleMan is developed by Gokul C M which is also available in the play store.
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The robot weighs about 12.5 kg and is mainly fabricated of plywood, fiberglass and acrylic. This robot can carry a load of 15 kg which can simply be controlled by a remote. MiddleMan also has an FPV camera used to give a better view if the robot is to move backward. It has an operating range of 200 meters from the province in which it has been controlled.
The robot is portable hence it easily extends its range of use to other floors. 24000 mAh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery is used in MiddleMan. It can be used for up to 4 hours on a single charge. A professional balance charger is a device that can balance charge itself. It takes about 3 hours to become fully charged. The estimated cost for the construction of the robot is Rs. 47000.
Challenges during its construction and paperwork delayed its handover to the CFLTC. Still, they completed their robot as soon as possible and handed it over to District Medical Officer Dr. K.S Shinu on January 21. Until vaccination for all health workers is completed, services provided by a robot is better than a human. So R&D GECB team took the right and reasonable step for a lot of people who are fighting the pandemic.