(Alliance Covid-19 special program) Remotely haptic controlled medical robot for telenursing without exposure to Covid-19 virus

（联盟Covid-19特别计划）远程触觉控制医疗机器人，用于远程护理而无需接触Covid-19病毒

• 批准号: 554506-2020
• 负责人: Zou, Ting
• 金额: $ 3.64万
• 依托单位: Memorial University of Newfoundland
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=705665
• 关键词: Alliance; Covid; 19; special; program

The tsunami of Covid-19 pandemic has swept across Canadian healthcare systems, causing a lot of doctors and nurses to fall ill. This is an unprecedented tough situation that no one has seen before and will become even worse if no further actions are taken. One reason can be attributed is direct exposure to Covid-19 patients with severe shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment). The urgent need to protect our healthcare workers motivates this research. Considering the worldwide shortage of PPE will continue, we are proposing an alternative approach by providing telenursing robots. In this research, we are proposing the world's first haptic tele-operated robot that physically interact with patients to allow doctors and nurses in a remote location to perform various medical services including sample collection, auscultation, blood pressure and oxygen monitoring, etc. The robot is composed of several core concepts: the state-of-the-art 7 DOF robotic arm that has smooth manipulation, a newly developed robot hand to realize soft contact with patients, a haptic device that is operated by healthcare workers to control the robot, an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to autonomously detect and interact with patients, and provide an alert when Covid-19 virus is detected. This program brings the strong partnership of three professional partners: my research team at Memorial University, Eastern Health and Proax Technologies Ltd. My research team has been devoted to the development of intelligent robotic systems and applied AI, and has gained solid knowledge and achieved significant accomplishments. Eastern Health has the largest network of hospitals and clinics in the province. They will provide in-kind contributions like consultation and experimental test in their community. Proax is a leading research and development institute in robotics industry. They will be fully involved in this research in providing consultation, training HQP to implement the design into practical use based on their unrivaled industrial experiences. We are confident that the proposed research will provide an effective protection for the Canadian healthcare workers who are our most reliable frontline to combat Covid-19.

新冠肺炎疫情的海啸席卷了加拿大的医疗系统，导致许多医生和护士生病。这是前所未有的严峻局面，如果不采取进一步行动，情况将变得更加糟糕。其中一个原因可以归因于直接接触到严重缺乏个人防护用品的新冠肺炎患者。保护我们的医护人员的迫切需要促使了这项研究。考虑到全球个人防护设备的短缺将持续下去，我们提出了另一种方法，即提供远程护理机器人。在这项研究中，我们提出了世界上第一个与患者进行物理互动的触觉远程操作机器人，允许远程医生和护士执行包括样本采集、听诊、血压和氧气监测等在内的各种医疗服务。该机器人由几个核心概念组成：最先进的7自由度机械臂操作平稳，新开发的机器人手实现与患者软接触，医护人员操作触觉设备控制机器人，人工智能(AI)算法自主检测并与患者互动，并在检测到新冠肺炎病毒时发出警报。这个项目带来了三个专业合作伙伴的强大合作伙伴：我在纪念大学、东方健康和Proax Technologies Ltd的研究团队。我的研究团队一直致力于智能机器人系统和应用人工智能的开发，并获得了扎实的知识和重大成就。东部健康拥有该省最大的医院和诊所网络。他们将在他们的社区提供咨询和实验测试等实物捐助。普罗克斯是机器人行业领先的研发机构。他们将根据他们无与伦比的工业经验，全面参与这项研究，为HQP提供咨询和培训，将设计落实到实际应用中。我们相信，拟议的研究将为加拿大医护人员提供有效保护，他们是我们对抗新冠肺炎最可靠的前线。