Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu): Karthik Velayutham, an electronics engineer and app developer hailing from Vedapatti, Coimbatore District has developed a robot to collect samples for COVID-19 screening.
Karthik had designed a robotic food tray for serving food and medicines to COVID-19 patients sometime ago, now he has developed a robot that can take nasal and throat swabs from suspected patients. Karthik demonstrated on Saturday the functioning of the device at Coimbatore Press Club.
The robotic device, weighing seven kgs, can take samples in a safe manner and can be used at laboratories for testing for Coronavirus infection.
Stating that the robot can be operated by an app on smartphone, Karthik said that the entire process of testing will be completed within two minutes. It can be completely automated, so that healthcare professionals are not exposed to the risk of infection.
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The robot, which can be rotated 360 degrees, will help in preventing the spread of the virus, even has the facility of self-cleaning after every test, he said.
A fully automated Smart Swab can be designed if the Government approved the project and extended help financially by way of encouragement, he said, adding that the robot was developed at a cost of Rs 2,000 and it took him three days to develop it.
