Checkout robot designed by MIT that can disinfect a warehouse floor in 30 minutes

MIT has designed a robot that can disinfect the floor of a 4,000-square-foot warehouse in just half an hour, and one day it could be used to clean up your local grocery store or school.

The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the university worked with Ava Robotics — a company focused on creating telepresence robots — and the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) to develop a robot that uses a custom UV-C light to disinfect surfaces and neutralize coronavirus aerosolized forms.

Development began in early April on this project and one of the researchers said it came in direct response to the pandemic. The results were encouraging enough for the researchers to say autonomous UV disinfection could be done in other environments, such as supermarkets, factories and restaurants.

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Covid-19 spreads mainly via airborne transmission, and is able to stay on surfaces for several days. With states across the US reporting a surge in cases and no concrete timetable for a possible vaccine, the pandemic is not currently ending in the near term. That leaves schools and supermarkets looking for solutions to desinfect areas effectively.

While household cleaning solutions can reduce the spread of the virus, an autonomous robot capable of cleaning large areas, such as warehouses or grocery stores, quickly and efficiently, might prove essential.

The researchers used one of the mobile robots from Ava Robotics' base and modified it with a custom UV-C light fixture. UV-C light has proven effective in killing surfaces of bacteria and viruses, the researchers said.

That is harmful to humans, though. The robot was built to be autonomous without any direct oversight or interaction required.

The team tele-operated the robot to teach it to navigate around the warehouse by setting up predefined waypoints, and the team said that it is currently exploring how to use the robot's onboard sensors to adapt to changes in the environment.

The goal is for the robot to become capable of adapting to our world to dynamically change its plan based on estimated UV-C dosages.

In a process called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, the researchers said, the UV-C array affixed to the top of the mobile robot emits a short-wavelength ultraviolet light that kills microorganisms and disrupts their DNA.

Typically, this process is used in hospital or medical settings to sterilize the rooms and stop microorganism spreading.

While the team is currently focused on a single robot being deployed at the food bank, the team said it was exploring what "multi-robot solutions might look like in the future."