IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021 - 42

interventions, contributing to better treatment outcomes.
Emerging surgical robots are used in a number of intervention procedures, from laparoscopies, colonoscopies, and
breast biopsies to general surgery [7].
The key features of interventional robotics, such as doctorless intervention, less-invasive procedures, and operations from a distance, are all promising approaches in the
fight against COVID-19 as they minimize physical interactions, shorten recovery periods, and consequently reduce
pressure on hospitals. As such, these systems can perform

Diagnosis

Prevention

direct interventions on patients to treat COVID-19 and
prevent the disease from further spread (Figure 1). However, similar to diagnostic robotics, many of these systems are
not yet mature enough for adoption.
One clinical challenge in this area is that of physically
injecting a global population with a vaccine, due to the limited availability of health-care workers who can adequately
give the injection and the need to protect them from infection. The funded DIH-HERO project in this domain
addresses a fast and widespread robotic vaccine delivery

Hospital Admission

Symptoms

Isolation

Respiratory Intervention

Therapeutics

Rehabilitation

Recovery

Severe COVID-19 Treatment Timeline
Diagnostic Robots
Interventional Robots
Voxdale
Rehabilitation Robots
Hocoma
Robots Supporting Patients
F&P Robotics
Robots Supporting
Healthcare Professionals

Rubedo
Sistemos

KELO
Robotics

ACCREA
Engineering

Akara
Robotics

PAL
Robotics

Jonker-Makis
MetraLabs
Robotics

Figure 1. The health-care robotics innovations being developed under the DIH-HERO COVID-19 call within the timeline of the
COVID-19 disease.

Table 1. The funded projects of the DIH-HERO COVID-19 call.
Company (Country)

42

*

Primary Application Area

Project Title (Acronym)

ACCREA Engineering (Poland)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Disinfecting RoboT (DisiRT)

Akara Robotics (United Kingdom)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Disinfectant RObots to Protect Against COVID
(DROPAC)

F&P Robotics (Switzerland)

Robotics supporting patients

Autonomous sanitizer and assistant (Lio)

Hocoma (Switzerland)

Rehabilitation robotics

Sensor-based arm and hand-functional telerehabilitation with ArmeoSenso (Tele-AX)

Jonker-Makis Robotics
(The Netherlands)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Autonomous mobile disinfection robot SAMAir (SAM-Air)

KELO Robotics (Germany)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Autonomous robots for disinfection (ARODIS)

MetraLabs (Germany)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Portable and agile autonomous disinfection
robot (STERY)

PAL Robotics (Spain)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Fast deployment of AVs in hospitals (TIAGo
delivery)

Rubedo Sistemos (Lithuania)

Robotics supporting health-care professionals

Unmanned disinfection solution (UDS)

Voxdale (Belgium)

Interventional robotics

Robot for intradermal drug delivery (ROB-ID)

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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MARCH 2021
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021
