NaRoVid1 is operating at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi’s Dong Anh district. (Photo: chinhphu.vn)

The made-in-Vietnam robot, named NaRoVid1, was developed by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Institute of Technology Application. It took the group more than two weeks to build a robot that can be used in a hospital’s isolation ward.

The robot began its operation at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi’s Dong Anh district. It can hold 10 liters of disinfectant solution, and once fully charged, can work continuously for approximately 2 hours. Thanks to a built-in sensor, NaRoVid1 can avoid all obstacles and navigate into every corner of a room, enabling it to clean and disinfect many different surfaces. The robot is programmed to disinfect itself before leaving a room, perfectly observing the COVID-19 infection control protocol. NaRoVid1 can flexibly follow a preprogrammed route and return to the charging location when finished.

Professor Doctor Nguyen Van Kinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Infectious Diseases, said: “Health workers are at the highest risk of contracting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. In addition to strictly complying with all precautionary measures, minimizing direct contact between medical staff and patients is recommended to reduce the risk of virus transmission. Robots can be used for that purpose and are actually more efficient than humans.”

The research team is working to improve this robot before it transfers the technology to manufacturers for mass production to meet the high demand by hospitals nationwide.