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Kitchener-get vaccinated? There is a robot.

Cobionix is ​​a company formed by a pair of former University of Waterloo mechanical engineering students. The company created a multifunctional robotic platform called Cobi, which performed the first autonomous robot intramuscular injection.

This project marks an important milestone in the final adoption of autonomous robots in the labor-stricken healthcare industry.

"When it comes to autonomous robots, you don't start with brain surgery," said co-founder and CEO Tim Raswell. "You start with simpler tasks, such as disinfection. Now we are entering some medical procedures for intramuscular injections, and then you can enter more advanced procedures."

He said that this is a process that requires continuous data collection and training, but it also needs to train the general public to feel comfortable when they are away from the interpersonal interactions in these spaces.

Laswell and co-founder and chief technology officer Nima Zamani (Nima Zamani) decided to establish an autonomous robotics company before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Watching all these new solutions enter the logistics, cold storage, and vaccine tracking markets, the two realized that one of the main bottlenecks in the system is still human injection of humans.

"At that time we asked ourselves:'In the future, do we foresee this as a task that humans should do? Do we make good use of the time of healthcare professionals?'" Raswell said.

It also has a cost component.

Raswell said that although many doctors and nurses who work for vaccinations are considered volunteers, most are paid, some even as high as $200 per hour. He said this was a reasonable value, but once the hospital was back online, many people were recalled to work, which led to a further shortage of vaccination sites.

Not to mention, the infection rate of frontline healthcare professionals has always been a concern for governments managing the pandemic, and any ability to reduce the time spent with infected patients is to ensure that healthcare professionals are safe, healthy, and in other key areas. The key to work.

Since the company was founded in 2019, the team has been working in the Velocity incubator in Waterloo. But when the pandemic started in March last year, Zamani turned his garage into their new headquarters.

Zamani said that in response to the “supply chain nightmare” that further delayed the project, the organization found a way to move on.

Using an electronic soldering station and a 3D printer, the robot is completely built in the garage—"This is really a garage start," Raswell joked.

He said that it is equipped with all the sensors needed to communicate with humans, as well as a long list of safety mechanisms to ensure that the robot's brain and body can safely complete various tasks.

It uses lidar sensors and artificial intelligence position tracking to identify the body, and then uses 360-degree depth perception to guide the needle-free "hand" to the appropriate position on the human arm for drug delivery.

Cobi uses a vial designed to be dispensed after use, without the help of a healthcare professional, and without the use of a needle, to inject the patient.

For the user, it feels like a pinch.

Although there is a clear demand in the current pandemic area, the company sees long-term demand in developing countries where mobile vaccination units can more easily travel without the need of large groups.

But Laswell emphasized that Cobi is a platform that can provide different functions. Therefore, for immunization, it is just a matter of a specific "hand" to perform functions. This will eventually lead to other healthcare practices such as ultrasound and other minimally invasive surgery.

Eventually, this may evolve into a simple operation, but at the same time, as the system becomes stronger and more powerful, the team will continue to explore and expand.

"I think there is a great opportunity to really realign healthcare resources, and this is just one example," Zamani said. "We will look for other examples so that employees can free up time to do more."

With a platform that is now fully capable of injections, the company will now begin the next phase of the project, which includes fundraising and obtaining the necessary permit approvals.

This is a multi-year process, but most of the heavy lifting of creating the first prototype has already been completed.

The team also has ideas for applications in the field of clean technology and hotels, and the goal is a project where robots can take on tasks in the face of labor shortages.

"In the next five to ten years, we will see more robots in our daily lives," Zamani said. "This is just the beginning."

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