UVC PURGE

We want to dissolve the tag "Expensive" from the UVC disinfection technology with our UVC-PURGE. UVC-PURGE is a semi-autonomous virus disinfection robot which has been equipped with six T5 UVC (254 nm) lamp to destroy SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus) effectively in a standard 12' x 16' room with a disinfection time of 2-3 minutes. The Robot provides real-time camera feedback for better navigation. While navigating this semi-autonomous robot is capable enough to detect any obstacles and protect itself. Being fully wireless controlled by mobile app or computer, UVC-Purge is very user-friendly with 1600 square feet coverage area and provides a battery backup of 1.5 hours. Ensuring a price of less than 600$ for this product will impact dramatically the middle-income people of this world especially in this disastrous pandemic situation. Ensuring user-friendliness by diluting the complexity of the control mechanism is the subsidiary objective of our product.

The Covid-19 global pandemic has brought out the necessity of a safe and cost-effective disinfection system to reduce the spread of this contagious virus. But the Traditional chemical disinfection process poses the threat of handling toxic or corrosive chemicals, production of residual as a byproduct of disinfection procedure, close contact with viruses while disinfection etc. On the contrary, the nontraditional disinfection method using a UVC lamp is more effective and safer. However, longer and close exposure to UVC light can damage the handler’s skin permanently. Likewise, it is not at all very efficient and cost-effective to install UVC light in each and every room of any instalment. Thus, a disinfection system was required which would nullify the disadvantages of both chemical and static UVC disinfection method and at the same time would effectively disinfect the SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus).

UVC-PURGE is a semi-autonomous virus disinfection robot which has been equipped with six T5 UVC (254 nm) lamp to destroy SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus) effectively in a standard 12' x 16' room with a disinfection time of 2-3 minutes. The Robot provides real-time camera feedback for better navigation. While navigating this semi-autonomous robot is capable enough to detect any obstacles and protect itself. Being fully wireless controlled by mobile app or computer, UVC-Purge is very user-friendly with 1600 square feet coverage area and provides a battery backup of 1.5 hours. Thus, it solves the above-mentioned problem in the following way:

1. Disinfects SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus) using totally chemical-free process and leaves behind no residue.
2. Eliminates the health hazard of being in close contact with either virus or UVC lamp during the disinfection process.
3. Ensure Cost Effectiveness (Less than 500 USD) than any similar existing products around the globe.

Envisioned Use-Cases:

UVC PURGE was developed with a vision to provide safe and cost-effective disinfection amidst of COVID-19 Pandemic using the methodology of robotics and automation. Following use cases were envisioned while constructing the robot.

1. Nurses/ Medical Facility workers using it to disinfect the COVID patient ward, ICU, Operation theatre and other Hospital compartments.
2. Business personnel using it to disinfect the workspace.
3. Disinfection of Classroom, Laboratories etc in an educational/Research institution 
4. Disinfection of Personal Apartment. 

Moreover, In Post pandemic world disinfection system will still remain an important matter of concern especially for medical facilities and biomedical research facilities (Use Scenario 1).

Requirement Elicitation:

To accumulate the technical requirements for satisfying these user sets, A requirement elicitation procedure was conducted via structured interview from 05 of the renowned government hospitals of Bangladesh. We conducted site visits in the hospitals where interview of a total of 07 doctors, 06 nurses and 06 maintenance personnel were collected. The disinfection mandate of the hospitals was to disinfect surfaces of the COVID patient ward of the suspected patient using Sodium hypochlorite Agent thoroughly. The cleaning personnel were not sufficiently oriented with IT technology. Most of the hospitals (3 out of 5) were using the chemical disinfection method using Sodium hypochlorite.

 The Cleaning personnel admitted their fear of being infected as they operate in the infected place to clean. Major Concerns regarding the disinfection method is that generally 30-40 minutes are required to wipe a whole room and almost 15-20 minutes overhead for drying that up. Moreover, for a larger hospital, this time rises to almost more than an hour. Most of them claimed that the Limited no of cleaning personnel along with the increased pressure of patients has made this disinfection procedure unsustainable. They also claimed that any very expensive cleaning system will not be suitable in their budget structure in this situation. One of the hospitals was using a UV-C machine to disinfect the equipment. However, They claim that though the system is very effective for disinfecting the equipment they will love a system to disinfect the whole surfaces of the rooms like COVID –Patient ward, ICU, Operation Theatre (OT) etc. They added that a compact design will be highly desired as it will be required to operate it in congested space. However, they expressed their concerns regarding the effect of UV-C on human. Through this process the major issues found were as follows:

1. The system has to be cost-effective.
2. The user interface(UI) and handling mechanism must be simple enough to be easily used by a person with limited/average IT knowledge.
3. User must be able to navigate the system from a safe distance and also has the flexibility to move in a congested space
4. The robot must have the autonomous capability to detect obstacles.

Engaging the Users:

Necessary Functionality testing of our solution has been completed with a comprehensive result. Furthermore, a preliminary disinfection efficiency test has been done in the biomedical laboratory of the Military Institute of Science & Technology (MIST) and has achieved positive feedback. However, an extended efficiency test using virus culture could not be performed in absence of such a facility in our country. However, strong reference papers (with laboratory test results), mathematical calculation and proven use of UVC lamp for disinfection show that our robot is ready to be deployed. We have already successfully delivered one of the robots to National Telecommunication Monitoring Cell (NTMC), Bangladesh which has been used for the last 6 months with appreciation. Likewise, the team has discussed with Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Bangladesh Army for delivering the robot in COVID-19 patient wards and other hospital compartments. UVC-PURGE robot is now ready to be manufactured on a large scale in industries.

Our solution will provide cost-effectively disinfection to the customers. Our target people are the middle to low-income people of this world which will eventually reach all the income level. Thus, amidst this pandemic UVC PURGE will reduce the suffering of the people (slowing the disease outbreak) and also will be useful to reduce future disease outbreak by ensuring safe and cost-effective disinfection for all.

So far 03 UVC Purge robots have been developed. One of the robots was delivered to National Telecommunication Monitoring Cell (NTMC), Bangladesh which has been used for the last 6 months with appreciation. 

In NTMC, almost 15 maintenance personnel are being participated in the evaluation study through routine disinfection procedure using the developed robot. A survey was conducted using the Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank-Questionnaire (SUPR-Q) methodology to validate the usability & credibility of the product. With a score of 4.3 (85.4%) in Usability, the system proved to be an easy and sustainable system to the user. Moreover, the Mean score of ease of using this system was 4.8 (90%) which shows that the required criteria of a simple user interface for maintenance personnel with average IT knowledge were taken care of. 

The key perspective of this semi-autonomous UVC robot is to provide efficient and cost-effective disinfection for a wide variety of people during this covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic situation

1. The UVC robots in the current market are quite expensive with a price range of 1500$++.
2. Again, most robots don't come up with a simple mobile application/ user interface to control the system, which eventually makes it very difficult for people with average IT knowledge to use it.

Considering these two key problems related to people with middle income or poor IT knowledge we have designed our solution. In a third world under-developed and developing country a significant amount of population falls under these two criteria. Thus, through a systemic requirement elicitation, we brought our robot with a price of less than 600$ and a mobile app-enabled control with a simple user interface. Considering the price range and simplicity of the product, UVC-PURGE can be a revolutionary innovation in the field of UV disinfection systems. Currently, a UV disinfection system is considered a way of better disinfection method with an expensive tag. UVC-PURGE can break this idea and present a better way for reaching a wider spectrum in the market.

We are currently serving in the Military Institute of Science & Technology ( 2 robots) and NTMC (1 robot) impacting over 2000 people. We need funding to commercialise our product. In a country like Bangladesh 600$ is still a high-priced machine. However, the statistics are different in Europe and the USA. We are working on reducing the price of the product but still, the work is ongoing. The target for us in the next one year to take the number of people serving to 10000 and build an industrial collaboration to launch our product globally. Thus the number we are planning to serve in five years is more than 2 Million people of middle income.

The list of indicators are as follow:

1. Local industrial collaboration for commercialisation

2. Environment-friendly manufacturing

3. Enhancement & improvement of technical specifications for ensuring durability, cost-effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

• Improved Navigation subsystem
• Improved Power subsystems
• Improved Mobile Application

4. Increased productivity from the installed hospitals and positive user feedback.

There is a total of 09 members working in our solution team. Both the engineering and management of this project is being run by the team members. Currently, we don't have a separate management section but we are planning for a separate management team.

09 people from the Military Institute of Science & Technology (MIST), Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka, Bangladesh have worked on the project. 8 of them are from Computer Science and Engineering and 1 is from mechanical engineering.

1. Akib Zaman(Chief Engineer and Project Manager)

2. Shoeb Ahmed Tanjim (Software Lead)

3. Shafayetul Islam(Electrical Lead)

4. Shah Md. Ahasan Siddique(Mechanical Lead)

5. Nafiz Imtiaz Khan(Mobile App Development)

6. Md. Shadman Aadeeb(Mobile App Development)

7. Riasat Haque(Programmer)

8. Md Rashid Ul Islam(Circuit Designer, Media Management)

9. Rayhan Ferdous Faisal(3D Modelling and Simulation)

Lab Facilities were provided by the above-mentioned institutions. With a variety of skillset present in the team, we have emphasized cross-training among the team to work in this challenging time of Covid-19.

Being a leader of this team I am very strict on ensuring a "zero-discrimination" work environment. The team is totally strict on its policy of being non-discriminate on the basis of race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin. The 09 members are all very respectful to each others' believes and work in a friendly environment. While growing our team we want to set the standards of work ethics. One of our prime goal in near future is to grow the team with an unbiased recruitment process. For achieving this goal I am currently training the sub-team leaders ( electrical, mechanical, software, app development, design, management ) to define the criteria of selection. Moreover, our team is a pioneering platform to inspire young kids of Bangladesh into robotics and automation.

Referring to the barriers I mentioned earlier, We want support from the MIT Solver community in case of mentoring and coaching our teams to bring our innovation in front of the world in a standardised and commercial way. We want to improve efficiency through constructive modifications in technologies that require support from a dynamic community like MIT solver. Moreover, We require funding to expand our work and ensure the impact targets we have set for the next 5 years.

We are yet to finalise the way we want to commercialise our product globally which requires business-model support. Moreover, the availability of technologies and funding is a crucial part to achieve our impact targets. Thus, we need support in the case of Technology and Funding. lastly, as a team of a developing country, we need consultation regarding Public relations on an international platform.

We want to partner up with an organisation that will support us in advanced testing and scale up our products. In addition to that, we want mentorship from the renowned MIT faculties. It will be an outstanding opportunity for us.

Though we are not operating in the US now we believe our solution UVC-PURGE will bring a breakthrough in the case of safe disinfection and well-being of the USA if we get the opportunity to launch in the USA. Thus we might be eligible for this Prize to advance our solution.

We believe UVC PURGE has brought disinfection within the reach of middle-income people both in the perspective of the whole world. Even more so, While we conducted a requirement elicitation study via structured interview from 05 of the renowned government hospitals of Bangladesh we found out that The disinfection mandate of the hospitals was to disinfect surfaces of the COVID patient ward of the suspected patient using Sodium hypochlorite Agent thoroughly. The cleaning personnel were not sufficiently oriented with IT technology. Most of the hospitals (3 out of 5) were using the chemical disinfection method using Sodium hypochlorite. Moreover, The Cleaning personnel admitted their fear of being infected as they operate in the infected place to clean. Major Concerns regarding the disinfection method is that generally 30-40 minutes are required to wipe a whole room and almost 15-20 minutes overhead for drying that up. Moreover, for a larger hospital, this time rises to almost more than an hour. Most of them claimed that the Limited no of cleaning personnel along with the increased pressure of patients has made this disinfection procedure unsustainable. They also claimed that any very expensive cleaning system will not be suitable in their budget structure in this situation. One of the hospitals was using a UV-C machine to disinfect the equipment. However, They claim that though the system is very effective for disinfecting the equipment they will love a system to disinfect the whole surfaces of the rooms like COVID –Patient ward, ICU, Operation Theatre (OT) etc. They added that a compact design will be highly desired as it will be required to operate it in congested space. However, they expressed their concerns regarding the effect of UV-C on human. 

We brought all these requirements to reality through our product and tried to contribute to reducing human sufferings amidst this pandemic. Even we have already piloted our product in an organisation and received good feedback. With proper funding and mentoring we can bring this product to the world arena and impact millions of lives in this pandemic and in the post-pandemic period. Thus we believe to be eligible as a team in the Health Security & Pandemics Challenge for the Global Fund Prize.