IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021 - 33

both specificity and sensitivity, with sufficient confidence,
is essential.
Specificity measures response in the presence of other
coronaviruses. Sensitivity can vary across individual patients with diverse immune systems and presenting differing amounts of the molecules to be detected. Testing,
therefore, requires the use of a good representative test
panel. Already, some 780 test kits (360 RNA and 390 antibody) are listed and have been evaluated [37] [38] following U.S./European Union regulations, and this will likely
increase as more and improved tests are created.
Automated Blood Taking
Antibody-based testing relies on blood samples. Although
this is one of the most common medical procedures, with
some 1.4 billion per year in the United States, there are issues
of pain, injury, or contamination in as many as one in five
cases [40], [41]. Consequently, efforts have been made to
automate this step, with Rutgers University/VascuLogic proposing one system (Figure 6) and Veebot (Mountain View,
United States) offering another. The first clinical evaluations
have been carried out [41]; however, it is not clear if they have
yet been widely deployed.
Important ancillary tasks, such as blood-tube handling,
have been manual and error prone. This has been improved
with the introduction of automation by systems such as the
Inpeco Protube Suite [42].

are deployed in the supply chain. In addition, there is an
increase in the speed of delivery, as they are not affected by
traffic congestion or geographical barriers. Drones have
already benefited the biopharmaceutical supply chain [43]
and distributed COVID-19 supplies across hospital campuses
and beyond [44], [45].
Among the existing medical drone services, there has
been a reorientation to address logistical needs due to
COVID-19. Zipline drones have been repurposed from
their typical blood-product delivery missions to those
involving the delivery of personal protective equipment
(PPE) in Ghana [46]. Such missions of up to 70 mi allowed
the delivery of this limited resource to where it was most
needed within hours, compared to the equivalent trip by
vernacular transport, which would take days. Collision
avoidance systems, in combination with inertial measurement units and global positioning systems, facilitate such
distant missions.

Use of Drones for the Logistics of Diagnostics
Improvements in automation and the secondary impacts of
the pandemic have stressed the logistics associated with Figure 6. Automated blood taking using robotics. (Source: M.
COVID-19 testing. Such challenges cover the 1) supply of Yarmush, Rutgers University; used with permission.)
consumables required for laboratory
tests, 2) delivery of human samples for
testing (swab/blood tests) from remote
sampling locations to centralized analysis laboratories, and 3) the collection
of COVID-19 testing kits from those
who are self-isolating or who have difficulty getting to sampling locations/
testing centers. Uncrewed aerial vehicles or drones have the potential to
meet most of these logistical challeng(a)
(b)
es presented by COVID-19.
Drone-Based Mobile Analysis
Low Cost, Low Power
In-Flight PCR
One of the benefits but also disadM
1
2
3
vantages of robotic analytical equipment is the large number of assays that
SARS-CoV-2
may be completed at any one time.
Staphylococcus
Aureus
During the pandemic, consumable
supplies for these pieces of analytical
equipment-for example, of mass
(c)
spectroscopy-grade water-were limited. As drones are not physically
crewed and are typically semiautono- Figure 7. Drone support for diagnostics. (a) A drone delivery of medical products and test
kits in the United States. (b) A drone safety cage to allow door-to-door delivery. (c) A lab on
mous, there is potential for savings in a drone with the potential for point-of-care COVID-19 testing. [Sources: (a) Matternet;
human resource requirements if they (b) P. Kornatowski, Dronistics; and (c) adapted from Priye et al. [51]; used with permission.]
MARCH 2021

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021

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