COVID-Bot: UV-C Based Autonomous Sanitizing Robotic Platform for COVID-19

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of COVID-Bot, an open-source robotic platform for sanitizing single plant environments such as offices, houses, apartments, among others. This development seeks to create a tool that contributes to the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, from a low-cost and easy-to-replicate robot, which disinfects surfaces through type C ultraviolet radiation. The platform is based on a differential robotic base, an RGB-D camera, a tracking camera, three UV-C lamps, and an embedded computer running the ROS-based control software. In addition, this paper presents the description of the hardware used, the software implemented, and the tests carried out to corroborate the operation of the integrated system. These tests demonstrated that the system is adequate to autonomously cover a one-floor apartment, based on the theoretical radiation distance of the used lamps.