- The project is conducting a pilot test in which an autonomous robot will carry out disinfection tasks to combat biological contamination (including against Covid-19) in one of the largest food handling spaces in the country
- 5G allows the machine to be operated remotely and reduces latency problems, working in real time
- The project has been developed by Mercabarna, ACCIONA, Orange and Mobile World Capital through the 5G Barcelona initiative
Presented today, at the Mobile World Capital stand at the Mobile World Congress, was a new pilot project that aims to test the benefits of 5G connectivity with artificial intelligence systems, combining them in an autonomous robot that disinfects the zones potentially contaminated by viruses such as COVID-19, bacteria or other harmful microorganisms in industrial facilities. The project was developed by Mercabarna, ACCIONA, Orange and Mobile World Capital under the auspices of the 5G Barcelona initiative and is supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The pilot will consist of a test in which the robot will be able to assess and implement new safety measures to combat germs in one of the largest food handling spaces in the country, where an average of 23,000 pass through each day.
Communication with the robot is practically immediate, thanks to the ultra-low latency of the 5G technology, which also brings other major advantages to this type of application, such as higher speeds and greater scalability, making the connection of many devices possible.
Moreover, 5G also enables the exchange of information between robot vehicles (for example, for environmental parameters), so that they can perform collaborative tasks autonomously, with the ability to detect and overcome obstacles. In this way, a worker can remotely control a robot vehicle, resolving the high attenuation rates and the risk of communication outages that can occur with other technologies such as Wi-Fi, LTE-M and NB-IoT.
Pablo Vilanova, Director of Strategy and Innovation for Mercabarna has stated that “as an essential service, Mercabarna has ensured, since the beginning of the pandemic, the food supply throughout Catalonia, thanks, among many other measures, to the fact that we have doubled the cleaning and disinfection of all our spaces. The tests that we have conducted in the wholesale organic food market, with the Robot that we are presenting today, have shown us that we can increase the efficiency of current disinfection processes and increase it in the most difficult to access spaces”.
According to Eduard Martín, CIO and director of 5G at Mobile World Capital: “This automated solution for biocontamination eliminates the risk posed by people working in contaminate areas. We are very proud to be able to once again collaborate on a project that aims to protect people’s health. Both at Mobile World Capital and in the 5G Barcelona programme, our goal has always and will always be to make the technology available to people so as to improve their lives”.
For his part, Víctor Vera, regional director in Catalonia for Large Accounts at Orange, highlighted that “for Orange it is a pleasure to collaborate once again on a project that aims to get the most out of a technology as disruptive as 5G, which is going to have a highly significant cross-sector impact both for society and for the economy and that is going to be decisive in the modernisation and progress of our industries”.
Finally, the Secretary for Digital Policies of the Generalitat de Catalunya, David Ferrer, stated that “in times of a pandemic, we have been able to demonstrate how digital technologies have been essential in the fight against Covid-19 thanks to solutions such as the one we are presenting today, where 5G technology and artificial intelligence will help Mercabarna to create safer working conditions”.
Disinfection of Covid-19 contaminated areas in ten minutes
The robot eliminates germs from surfaces and kills any airborne particles remaining suspended in the air using concentrated ultraviolet light (UV-C). Also, the robot switches off automatically as soon as it detects someone in the immediate vicinity, since the intensity of the light can be harmful to people.
This machine, in addition to having the ultraviolet lamp, can move around rooms autonomously thanks to the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. It takes two hours to remove 99.99% of harmful microorganisms from Mercabarna’s organic food wholesale market, the Biomarket, which has a size of 3.869m2.
The artificial intelligence system allows the machine to focus on the areas most likely to be contaminated, such as sinks, doorknobs, food handling tables, counters, etc; afterwards, it travels on its own to the different rooms in a venue. It also has an additional module to detect the presence of bacteria and biological fluids using fluorescence to assess the hygiene of any room.
The robot can also be used in quarantine areas and laboratories, and could have civil applications in the post-pandemic ‘new normal’. This is the case for hotels, airports and other public places, which will have to deal with how to manage cleaning in a way that does not pose a health risk.
