Game-changing robotics technology to provide remote medical treatment to casualties in high-risk emergency environments has been developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield.
Using medical telexistence (MediTel) technology, researchers from the university’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), Sheffield Robotics and Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, have successfully created a mobile, robotic-controlled uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV), which boasts virtual reality (VR) capability, to enable medics and operators to assess critical casualties in hazardous environments, allowing them to perform a remote triage while also ensuring their safety.
The first-of-its-kind, fully integrated medical telexistence solution was developed in just nine months. It features two robotic arms which can effectively remotely operate medical tools to perform a critical initial assessment of a casualty within 20 minutes, including: temperature, blood pressure and heart rate checks; carry out a palpation of the abdomen and administer pain relief through an auto-injector – all while streaming real time data to the remote operator.
The project was led by David King, head of digital design at the AMRC and Sanja Dogramadzi, professor of medical robotics and intelligent health technologies at the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering and director of Sheffield Robotics.
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