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Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots

Posted by timothy on from the at-one-remove dept.

Lucas123 (935744) writes U.S. robotics researchers from around the country are collaborating on a project to build autonomous vehicles that could deliver food and medicine, and telepresence robots that could safely decontaminate equipment and help bury the victims of Ebola. Organizers of Safety Robotics for Ebola Workers are planning a workshop on Nov. 7. that will be co-hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Texas A&M, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. "We are trying to identify the technologies that can help human workers minimize their contact with Ebola. Whatever technology we deploy, there will be a human in the loop. We are not trying to replace human caregivers. We are trying to minimize contact," said Taskin Padir, an assistant professor of robotics engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

56 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Economics plays a role here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I was crunching the numbers yesterday to determine if it would be cheaper for the US military to just rent Carnival cruise ships* for 1 month than it would be for them to build hospital beds(it was). This was ignoring the force multiplier of immediate delivery.

    *($50/person a day average)

    They can't even afford enough body bags. Whatever people come up with has to be more than just "better". It has to be cheaper than the current solutions over the relevant time frames.

    1. Re:Economics plays a role here by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 2

      Why do we have no good Ebola treatments already right now? Regulations. The FDA ordered Zmapp to stop testing back in July and ordered TMK-Ebola research suspended in January.

      How much sense does it make to send a bunch of troops to Africa to build isolation camps (yeah, yeah,call them hospitals) for them? Zero. I mean, to your point, it's not like we couldn't save money by just paying local contractors to put up some buildings. Why do we want the military in the African construction business? Is it because that's the only tool available and the only semi-useful thing they could think of for them to do? Ideally, we wouldn't send anyone near other people with Ebola. It's called quarantine...

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    2. Re:Economics plays a role here by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      Google "funding for Ebola vs. funding for DOD".

    3. Re:Economics plays a role here by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure if you have the money to spend $39 million on researching why obese girls have a tough time getting dates, developing origami condoms, etc... the problem with not starting a $9 million research effort earlier isn't related to overall funding levels so much as to incompetent administration and politics driven priorities.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    4. Re:Economics plays a role here by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      The NIH is not the CDC. By the way, the DoD will spend $495.6 Billion (with a B) next year. $39 million will not even pay for a fix for the cluster fuck that is the F-35.

    5. Re:Economics plays a role here by flyingsquid · · Score: 1

      The NIH is not the CDC. By the way, the DoD will spend $495.6 Billion (with a B) next year. $39 million will not even pay for a fix for the cluster fuck that is the F-35.

      Oh yeah, about that... turns out that they found another glitch with the F-35. It's a funny story. So you probably know about the software glitches, and the cracks in the airframe, and the issues with the tailhook being in the wrong place on the carrier version. Well, turns out that the F-35 has a feature that sprays Ebola-laden blood and fecal matter all over when you turn the engine on.

      Of course, it is easy to point fingers and say "hey, Lockheed Martin! Maybe you shouldn't include a feature where the plane sprays highly infectious Ebola-infected blood and feces everywhere!!" But developing a fighter aircraft is a complicated job. And hindsight is 20-20.

      Anyway, it's easily fixable, it will just require a few more years and a few billion more dollars and I'm sure we can sort the Ebola-spraying feature all out. Now, the bubonic plague-infested rats are a more complicated issue. They're part of the targeting system, you see...

    6. Re:Economics plays a role here by umghhh · · Score: 1

      If you leave these people to their own devices then not only they will start dying in big numbers but because their society will collapse and we will have refugees everywhere and this means the virus will be everywhere (consult a map of the region and think about how many troops you would need to quarantine that when you think that is a right solution). This is the reason we try to help. Now the way to help is another matter. I think sending people there to help treatment of patients is one thing but if the numbers will grow then better build isolation units as you call them, provide food and other supplies and leave the communities to deal with the problem on their own while hoping that vaccine is ready soon.

    7. Re:Economics plays a role here by umghhh · · Score: 1

      But that is only because helmets for f-35 pilots cost 600k a peace and US ordered more than 65 of them.

    8. Re:Economics plays a role here by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      Are you attempting to disagree with me, or agree with me? It's not very clear...

      What is your statement about the CDC in reference to? I don't see anyone here suggesting the CDC is the NIH. Was this meant sarcastically, like, "Well the NIH is no CDC", to imply that despite how screwed up the NIH is, at least they aren't as screwed up as the CDC has demonstrated itself to be recently?

      The NIH is the government agency responsible for funding an Ebola vaccine research project (which they've recently assigned a budget of $9 million), which is why wasting $39 Million on other things instead of Ebola in the recent past is relevant.

      In terms of the DOD, yeah, I agree that they waste tons (literally) of money, along with pretty much every other government agency, but unless you're trying to make that general point, the relevance to this discussion escapes me... The NIH obviously has the money for funding researching related to Ebola, they just chose not to spend it on that until very recently, previously having "higher priorities", like discovering why fat women go on fewer dates than skinnier women. I mean, hey, these are apparently deep mysteries to everyone in the government which require serious academics to delve into...

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    9. Re:Economics plays a role here by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      Your link was to the waste by the NIH. CDC is in charge of outbreaks like Ebola. NIH is responsible for researching whatever Congress grants if funding to do. Ebola was not in the budget.

    10. Re:Economics plays a role here by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      You apparently didn't read the whole article:
      "On Tuesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) had to outsource efforts at an Ebola vaccine to the Baltimore-based Profectus BioSciences Inc. The company will receive $8.6 million to research and test their vaccine, a fraction of NIH funding that went to the above projects."

      NIH is part of HHS. It is "the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research".

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    11. Re:Economics plays a role here by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      It would be cheaper to develop a vaccine for ebola then to develop quarantine robots to deal with the effects. The reason this hasn't happened is because we let private companies run our medical system (hospitals, drugs, vaccines) instead of having government do this vital task, and private companies care more about making money than saving lives.

    12. Re:Economics plays a role here by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      You should have started at the top of the thread.

      The FDA ordered Zmapp to stop testing back in July and ordered TMK-Ebola research suspended in January.

      These were private companies trying to create treatments and vaccines who were literally stopped by the government.

      As the government was actively preventing Ebola treatments, before having them "do this vital task", perhaps we should look at their record on the issue?

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    13. Re:Economics plays a role here by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      That's super. My original post was google "funding for Ebola vs. funding for DOD". The entire HHS budget is about $4.8 billion vs. $486 billion for DoD. Just setting forth our priorities.

  2. burying the dead by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    would be an appropriate role, unless religion gets in the way.

    1. Re:burying the dead by Skiboy941 · · Score: 1

      Please don't give robots religion. We don't need to have robots fighting for the same reasons we do.

    2. Re:burying the dead by StripedCow · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please don't give robots religion. We don't need to have robots fighting for the same reasons we do.

      vi versus emacs?

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    3. Re:burying the dead by Skiboy941 · · Score: 1

      This comment made my day. Thank you.

  3. Best use of resources? by whome · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't a vaccine be a better use of research money?

    1. Re:Best use of resources? by leftover · · Score: 1

      It isn't an either/or situation.
      Vaccines take time to develop, produce, and administer.
      Bodies are piling up right now.
      These roboticists want to Do Something and this is what they know how to do.

      --
      Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
    2. Re:Best use of resources? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Do you even know what a vaccine does?

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re:Best use of resources? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Hmmm. If we developed an Ebola vaccine, it might be the world's greatest knows way of eliminating Luddites. We could even put a homeopathically small trace amount of mercury in it, just to make sure.

    4. Re:Best use of resources? by ultranova · · Score: 1

      If we developed an Ebola vaccine, it might be the world's greatest knows way of eliminating Luddites.

      You can eliminate Luddites by making sure people losing their jobs to machines don't become desolate. That was, after all, Ludd's complaint. But of course any actual method of doing so would be eeevil socialism, so I guess it's easier to remain ideologically pure and pretend ludditism is about some inherent hate of progress.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    5. Re:Best use of resources? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      It's true that the original Ned Ludd protests in 1811 were purely a labor movement by crofters who perceived their artisanal fabric-making business in danger from the Jacquard loom. No concept of what industrialization would mean in the long run existed at the time.

      It would be nice if we had a more historically accurate term for it, but the movement that we call Luddite today actually is a visceral hatred of innovation itself. It's the idea that applications of science are by default dangerous and 'corporate'.

  4. I have some already by spiritplumber · · Score: 2

    I have some of these robots already, they were developed in partnership with Inertia Labs of Battlebots fame. Please tell me how I can contact these folks so that I can hand the technology and protoypes over! I'm serious! http://www.robots-everywhere.c...

    --
    Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
  5. We need more Firestones in the World by Lisias · · Score: 3, Informative

    See for yourself.

    --
    Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
    1. Re:We need more Firestones in the World by umghhh · · Score: 1
      If this is actually true it just shows that WHO is no good with their plans - more money and resources needed to be diverted to local communities to help themselves. There are not enough of helpers from outside to help now anyway so this is probably better and even if it does not work for everybody it may actually work well enough to convince the idiots claiming that there is novirus or that it is spread on purpose by burial teams etc. or just wait until they die and make for a better world.

      ON a second thought - I just wonder why this story is not known in wider world as it seems to show that there is hope and motivated people can actually do something useful instead of indulging in the biggest zombi attack media hysteria since Wells did his Martians invasion.

  6. Technology might not help. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the most heavily affected areas, terrible hygene contributes directly to Ebola. Most of this is a direct result of things like tribal healers or mysticist traditions that involve the direct handling of and exposure to the bodily fluids of the deceased. Religion has also compounded efforts to treat ebola victims as some tribes have spiritual leaders that insist quarantine teams and hospitals are demons or not to be trusted. Among other diseases, Its why eradicating polio in africa has become an almost impossible effort as the oral treatment is widely considered to be a secret plan to cause sterility. We have the same issues in america, albeit to a lesser extent with anti-vaccination conspiricists and seventh day adventists that refuse to immunize their children or set foot in a hospital.

    This is controversial but it should be said. but the biggest problem, religion, cant be solved with technology because religious zealots dont operate logically.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:Technology might not help. by umghhh · · Score: 1

      the reason why religion was not removed by natural selection is that it offers a society some benefits if external pressure - it coerces people into cooperation. Whether a particular religion has a supernatural being or a state or flying spaghetti monster is actually irrelevant as long as it helps people 'understand' the world. There are more of us that do need that than not.

    2. Re:Technology might not help. by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      This is controversial but it should be said. but the biggest problem, religion, cant be solved with technology because religious zealots dont operate logically.

      "Religion" isn't some generic thing, equivalent in all it's forms.

      The whole concept of a hospital exists due to Christianity.

      We have the same issues in america, albeit to a lesser extent with anti-vaccination conspiricists and seventh day adventists that refuse to immunize their children or set foot in a hospital.

      Ah, that well known nun Jenny McCarthy.

    3. Re:Technology might not help. by Dragon+Bait · · Score: 1

      This is controversial but it should be said. but the biggest problem, religion, cant be solved with technology because religious zealots dont operate logically.

      History doesn't bear this out. During the black plague in Europe, the Jews fared much better than others because of a ritual of cleanliness. Islam also has numerous cleansing/washing rituals. At best, lumping all religions together is ignorant.

  7. Vaccine + survivors by tomhath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ebola is a virus, if a person survives the disease they are apparently immune to at least the same strain. Training those people to provide care seems like a more viable option.

    1. Re:Vaccine + survivors by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

      In fairness, it worked with the Black Death. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... (I don't know the english term, sorry)

      --
      Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    2. Re:Vaccine + survivors by umghhh · · Score: 1

      you mean the bodies are already in soupy form that makes further processing much easier. Interesting albeit slightly disgusting thought.

    3. Re:Vaccine + survivors by umghhh · · Score: 1
      italian link - that must be a new low on /.

      Other than that it seems to discuss quarantine and no it did not work back then.

  8. Modern Monty Python by DaveM753 · · Score: 2

    I can just see groups of robots slowly rolling down the cobblestone streets announcing, in typical monotoned robot-voice fashion, "BRING...OUT...YOUR...DEAD..."

    Someday, children will sing songs about it. In the meantime, please get off my plane. TY.

    1. Re:Modern Monty Python by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "But I'm not dead yet"

  9. first post by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

    about jaegers and kaiju

  10. Robots? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Well, this poor guy would be out of a job now, wouldn't he?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  11. They should stick to making modems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    US Robotics? I can see it now.

    Robot rolls up to a patient and says:
    BEEEEBEEEEE buhhhhbhhhhhh weeeeeow weeeeow wah KSHHHHHHHHHHH

    1. Re:They should stick to making modems by Skiboy941 · · Score: 1

      Underrated comment. I laughed my ass off.

  12. Re:Soap and Water by nyctopterus · · Score: 2

    Sorry kid, but your mum's an idiot.

  13. Germ zapping robot by SternisheFan · · Score: 1
    "...Xenex is a company that produces a germ-zapping robot that could be a beneficial support in fighting potential risks of contamination in hospital settings and address sterilizing spaces contaminated by Ebola. A video from the company explains what the machine does in general: the Xenex technology utilized is all about ultraviolet light, produced by the sun in three types, UV-A, -B and -C. The A and B types cause suntans and burns, but C is filtered by the ozone layer around the earth. As it does not occur in nature, bacteria and viruses have no defense against it. When germs are exposed to UV-C, the light kills the germs. The Xenex machine, once producing this light in a hospital room, can in five minutes drastically reduce germs in the room. The user stays outside the room; with prolonged exposure, UV-C could damage the eyes; the robot must always be run in an empty room. For additional safety, an orange cone stays outside of the room, as well as caution signs for the door. Inside the room, there is a gray cone that watches out for motion. Should motion be detected, the gray cone will turn the device off. The device is run when the room is empty after the patient is discharged and terminal cleaned. The xenon bulb —the Xenex robot utilizes pulsed xenon to create UVC light—will pulse for five minutes, disinfecting the area around the device. UV-C light cannot go through glass, walls or windows."

    www.phys.org/news/2014-10-germ-zapping-robot-war-ebola-video.html

  14. Xenex, when implemented properly ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... is a safe and effective palindrome.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  15. Re:Why can't Africans BUILD THEIR OWN robots? by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    Why does the rest of the world have to save them .../quote.

    Because people like you with IQ 70 don't know the answer to that question?

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  16. Ebola-fighting robots by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    U.S. robotics researchers from around the country are collaborating on a project to build autonomous vehicles that could deliver food and medicine, and telepresence robots that could safely decontaminate equipment and help bury the victims of Ebola

    I'm glad to hear the folks at U.S. Robotics have found something useful to work on, given how the dial-up modem business has tanked.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  17. Re:What? by umghhh · · Score: 1

    Did this nurse in texas know that she had to wear a protective suit? Judging on CDC advice and other little f.ups we hear about it may be that they forgot to tell her. Other than that this is just a joke - robots may help in years to come but not now. We have problems with increasing of production of these fancy suits of which many are needed per health worker per bed per day. But it works nicely as a diversion from panic and hysteria in US media so it is good for well being of the person and the society in general.

  18. US Robotics? by X10 · · Score: 1

    US Robotics, do they still exist?

    --
    no, I don't have a sig
  19. Re:after reading the headline... by umghhh · · Score: 1

    I suppose napalm is a better disinfectant and it smells like victory if applied properly (as we know).

  20. Not immune either. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Great, until the robots get the e-b0la computer virus.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  21. PVC Based Robotics? by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    A cute idea, that will take longer to create that the problem will exist. But lets look at some the requirements. With a 3 hour charge on some battery pack; change every 2 hours. The humanoid torque engineering is fairly stright forward. Self balancing. Record all movements, audio, and visual; straight forward. Be repairable, or parts replaceable. Use them initially as a type of drone.

  22. stop the source first by kcelery · · Score: 1

    UAV robot to capture the fruit bat that's suppose to be the original of Ebola.
    If people don't have food, they go back to hunt for fruit bat. The cycle never end.

  23. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  24. Solved Problem by Capt.Albatross · · Score: 1

    "We are trying to identify the technologies that can help human workers minimize their contact with Ebola." said Taskin Padir, an assistant professor of robotics engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

    That technology exists: protective clothing, properly used, and sanitary waste disposal. If you can't get that, you won't be able to get robots. If you have it but cannot organize its correct use, there is an effective solution, but it doesn't involve robotics.

  25. If you want a disease cured ... by Bismuthprince · · Score: 1

    Spread it to the rich.

    1. Re:If you want a disease cured ... by Bismuthprince · · Score: 1

      I should've read TFA for clarity, somehow made this about nanotechnology in my head.
      Main concept of my point still stands though; hardly anybody stepped in when Ebola remained in Africa.