Since the pandemic first shook the global stage there has been a lot of attention on the need to keep frontline workers out of harm’s way. For many, this meant taking efforts to flatten the curve through self quarantine. While these efforts played a meaningful and documentable role in flattening the curve, various pieces of technology took on significant roles as well.
The Cheetah Mobile AI-enabled service robot is a prime example. With over 10000 robots in the field, Cheetah Mobile’s robots have served more than 200 million people and completed more than 5 million voice interactions daily. Its robots have been adopted by more than 1,600 organizations and used in more than 20 scenarios.
Most prominently, its smart epidemic prevention and control robots continue to contribute in meaningful ways as medical professionals focus on combating COVID-19 in China. The goal is to greatly reduce medical workers’ workload and risk of cross-infection by guiding the way for patients, doing remote ward rounds and fever pre-diagnosis, transporting medication, test reports and medical waste as well as conducting no-contact temperature measurement, mask detection and alert system, as well as offering telepresence for safe communication.
Road ahead
Although the smart epidemic prevention and control robots are not currently utilized in manufacturing environments, Cheetah Mobile’s Vincent Li tells IndustryWeek they could play a significant role in “health and safety in industrial environments, including contactless temperature measurement and mask detection, sounding an alert if issues are detected,” he says. “Another area they could be utilized is with delivering hazardous samples from point A to point B without the need for a human courier.”
According to Li, the biggest challenge in integrating Cheetah robots into more industrial settings would be programming the robots to co-exist and collaborate with humans. “When this occurs, humans wouldn’t only be sharing the same workspace with robots, but also using them as useful assistants,” he says.
