UPES faculty develops ‘Sanirobo’ for contactless sanitization

The self-powered, camera-featured model titled ‘Sanitizing Apparatus and Method for Dispensing Sanitizer Solution’, automatically sanitizes small pockets and densely populated areas

Ms. Shubhi Sharma, faculty at the UPES School of Computer Science and Neel Advani, student, B.Tech. CS, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language, together developed a self-powered ‘Sanirobo’, which uses a high-end microcontroller, accompanied by a camera. The unique feature of this model is that it can be controlled from any part of the world. Its features include pumping and sprinkling, along with an automatic mode, where the robot sanitizes the infected area by itself.

The research team has already filed a patent for the model titled ‘Sanitizing Apparatus and Method for Dispensing Sanitizer Solution’.

Ms. Sharma informed that live streaming will be provided to the user along with the control and automatic modes. She further added, “From the time COVID-19 came into existence, I was studying about several problem areas to work upon. One day, I saw a piece of news where workers were sanitizing the lanes and open areas manually. A Mumbai slum makes humans more exposed to risk as taking big sanitization machinery in these areas is not possible. I always wanted to do something for society. Hence, I decided to work on this problem as automatic sanitization and saving human lives both are the need of this crisis.”

The Sanitizer container is of two-litre capacity. Upon full charge, it can work continuously for up to two hours, which will come handy while working in narrow lanes. Additionally, the Controller having authentication details can access it from anywhere, which reduces the risk of human exposure to the affected area. When the sanitizer container gets empty, it pops up the message in the controller phone application informing that the sanitizer is finished.

Ms. Shubhi further added that ‘Sanirobo’ can be potentially helpful in sanitizing narrow lanes, small pocket areas, slum areas, parks and other public places. She said, “The sprinkler attached on its top sprinkles the disinfectant in 360-degree surroundings and the dispenser at the bottom sanitizes the area it passes through. The size of the original product, once it comes out in the market, would be approximately 80cm-70cm-80cm.”

An elated Neel Advani said, “It was a great experience working with Shubhi ma’am over the last three months. I have had my flaws, which she helped me in rectifying by guiding me in the right direction. Although we had to go through a few modifications, it all worked out. As described by Mark Bower in his talk about the Super Mario effect that all you got to do is just focus on the target and all of it works out in the end.”

Also read: Researchers at UPES develop unique sanitizing system for public transport