New-age warriors against corona: Robots, drones, chatbots, apps
Start-ups are offering the latest technology to help health workers
Drones spraying disinfectant across large areas, robots dispensing hand sanitizer, apps analysing coughs to see if they are ‘dry’ or ‘wet’, and AI techniques normally used for detecting tuberculosis being tweaked so that they can detect the virus. These are some of the contributions of Indian start-ups to the fight against the contagion.
As the nation moves into a 21-day lockdown, start-ups, far from letting their spirits sink, are rising to the occasion by building drones, chatbots, apps, and robots to help health care professionals fighting on the COVID-19 frontline.
General Aeronautics, a Bengalurubased aerospace engineering start-up, has deployed its drones to spray disinfectant across the city. “We have
sprayed disinfectant in crowded areas such as KR Market and Majestic, and will continue for the next 10 days to cover most parts of the city,” said Abhishek Burman, founder and CEO.
The disinfectant, a mixture of sanitiser and bleaching powder, is being sprayed in areas where garbage has piled up to prevent the spread of any further infections.
In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, Garuda Aerospace, a Chennai-based startup, is also helping the civic bodies to spray disinfectant using drones with the help of engineering students from Agni College of Technology.
For those fretting about the health of quarantined loved ones, Healthcare startup Dozee is giving out its heartbeat and respiration monitor for free to those quarantined within Bengaluru city limits.
A brainchild of IIT alumni Mudit Dandwate and Gaurav Parchani, Dozee is a portable device which gives continuous respiration data without the need for wires or technical expertise.
Attached to a thin sensor sheet which goes below the mattress, the device is kept underneath the patient’s chest area and, Dozee says, gives 98 per cent accurate data. “This will help ease the anxiety of loved ones as currently they have limited means to know the health status of those quarantined at home,” said Dandwate, CEO.
Several start-ups are also working to help reduce the burden on healthcare workers. Asimov Robotics began by using its robots to dispense sanitisers and distribute masks to the employees of various startups in Kochi in Kerala. Now it is looking to deploying robots called Karmi-bots to assist Covid19 patients in isolation wards by carrying food to them. Sophisticated medical equipment is being tweaked to meet current needs. For example, Sequoia-backed healthcare startup Qure.ai has modified the AI solutions it had created earlier to help detect diseases like tuberculosis from Xrays. “Previously, our solution could automatically generate chest X-ray interpretation reports, detect tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and lung malignancies. Now, it can additionally interpret an X-ray to detect findings indicative of Covid-19 and even quantify the proportion of lungs affected due to the lesions,” said Prashant Warier, CEO of Qure.