Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

THE Shenzhen Luohu Hospital Group, in partnership with a tech company based in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, has completed the development of a fully automated robot prototype for nasopharyngeal swab sampling.

This was announced Monday by the hospital group. The robot prototype is the first artificial intelligence (AI) sampling robot in the world that has realized force control, automatic navigation and calibration for soft tissue, according to the group.

The robot, called Pengcheng Qinggeng (鹏程青耕), is able to automatically collect nasopharyngeal swab samples without manual intervention. It is designed to standardize sample collection, reduce sampling cost, reduce high-risk exposure for medical workers and save medical resources.

According to the developers, the core technology of the sampling robot is its highly sensitive force control robot arm and force control servo system. In experiments, the subjects felt that the force exerted by the robot was equivalent to that of manual collection.

Additionally, the robot’s emergency stop button can be used in emergencies for the safety of the person whose nasopharyngeal swab sample is being collected.

A disposable sampling swab and a sample storage tube are used in the whole process of sample collection. The robot arm holds the nasopharyngeal swab for collecting samples without contacting the subject.

Meanwhile, the system is equipped with an automatic infrared disinfection device that can completely sterilize the robot arm after each sample collection, so as to avoid cross infection.

“Our original intention in developing this robot was to use it to completely replace the sampling work of our nurses,” said Sun Xizhuo, head of Shenzhen Luohu Hospital Group.

Sun said that the robot’s indicators, after more than a year of R&D and testing, have reached the original design requirements.

In the future, the technologies are expected to be applied in a broader range of scenarios in the examination and auxiliary diagnosis of other tissues and organs, according to the developers.