Disinfection robot for overcoming social challenges

The Ger­man-Pol­ish team of Omron Europe has received an award for the devel­op­ment of an auto­mat­ed UV dis­in­fec­tion robot. In Ger­many, OMRON part­ner ICA Traf­fic GmbH has launched the UV‑C dis­in­fec­tion robot as HERO21. The mobile device is the first of its kind and offers a nation­wide ser­vice infra­struc­ture. The annu­al OMRON Glob­al Awards (TOGA) aim to inspire com­pa­ny employ­ees to approach dai­ly work tasks from a social per­spec­tive and to use their tech­ni­cal exper­tise and the com­pa­ny’s capa­bil­i­ties to inno­vate for the ben­e­fit of society.

This com­pe­ti­tion focus­es on the most press­ing social prob­lems of our time. This time, the focus of the awards was on devel­op­ing solu­tions to mit­i­gate the effects of the Covid 19 pan­dem­ic. Out of a total of 6,461 project sub­mis­sions, the dis­in­fec­tion robot project led by a team of Ger­man and Pol­ish employ­ees emerged as the over­all win­ner for the EMEA region. The jury par­tic­u­lar­ly praised the rapid devel­op­ment of the autonomous UV‑C robot, which dis­in­fects high-risk areas such as hos­pi­tals, schools and offices with­out human intervention.

“The dis­in­fec­tion robot is help­ing to con­tain the spread of Covid-19. It’s a clear response to the great­est social chal­lenge of our time. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the team for a well-deserved Gold Award!”

- Gary Banks, Gen­er­al Affairs Manager

Since the con­test was launched in 2012, employ­ees have sub­mit­ted more than 40,000 entries. Through a year-round pro­gram of glob­al com­mu­ni­ty projects, employ­ees at all lev­els and in all region­al offices are encour­aged to think beyond their dai­ly work and con­sid­er how their skills can ben­e­fit soci­ety. The awards encour­age employ­ees to reflect on and eval­u­ate their own work and that of oth­ers, learn from col­leagues around the world, and ulti­mate­ly cel­e­brate com­pa­ny-wide suc­cess­es in solv­ing social prob­lems. Con­tri­bu­tions are judged not only on their mea­sur­able out­comes, but also on the mag­ni­tude of the social chal­lenge they address and the degree of col­lab­o­ra­tion and syn­er­gy among team members.

Disinfection robot eliminates viruses and protects employees

By equip­ping autonomous LD Series mobile robots with UV‑C lamps, the team, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with local part­ners, was able to suc­cess­ful­ly auto­mate the dis­in­fec­tion process, elim­i­nat­ing the need for employ­ees to per­form this task. The solu­tion ensures the safe­ty of high-risk areas such as work­places, schools and health­care facil­i­ties with­out putting clean­ers at risk or caus­ing dam­age to facil­i­ty and equipment.

The track­able robots emit ultra­vi­o­let rays that ster­il­ize objects. They can also be pro­grammed to meet indi­vid­ual require­ments of spe­cif­ic loca­tions, routes or hours of oper­a­tion. This can help con­tain the spread of Covid-19 and oth­er virus­es, bac­te­ria and germs, increas­ing safe­ty and con­fi­dence. The dis­in­fec­tion robots have been very suc­cess­ful since their first deploy­ment and are already being used in more than ten countries.

Smart solutions to mitigate the impact of the Corona pandemic

Oth­er 2021 award-win­ning entries include a smart ven­ti­la­tor devel­oped by Omron Spain that mea­sures patients’ res­pi­ra­to­ry vol­ume and pres­sure in real time, learns from the data and pro­vides the opti­mal amount of oxy­gen. Also of note is a team from Omron Chi­na that pro­vid­ed vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­er BYD with the tech­ni­cal exper­tise and equip­ment for 1,800 face mask pro­duc­tion lines and 200 com­pos­ite fac­to­ries. A project paper from Japan also shows how the com­pa­ny resumed domes­tic pro­duc­tion of body tem­per­a­ture ther­mome­ters for the first time in 25 years in response to a sud­den surge in ther­mome­ter demand when the Coro­na pan­dem­ic broke out.

For Dr. Klaus Kluger, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Cen­tral and East­ern Europe at the Group, the dis­in­fec­tion robot project is per­fect proof of the val­ue that the com­pe­ti­tion has not only for the com­pa­ny but also for soci­ety in gen­er­al: “This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for our employ­ees world­wide to use their skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence for the com­mon good and thus dri­ve inno­va­tion and prod­uct devel­op­ment. This year’s ini­tia­tive has gen­er­at­ed numer­ous con­tri­bu­tions that under­pin the inno­v­a­tive strength of our employ­ees and help soci­ety bet­ter cope with the dev­as­tat­ing impact of the pan­dem­ic. To excel in such an extra­or­di­nary field is a tru­ly out­stand­ing achievement.”

Yoshi­hi­to Yama­da, Pres­i­dent and CEO, con­curs, “In our dai­ly work, each of us has ideas on how to do things bet­ter. But it takes courage to look beyond our rou­tine tasks and put those ideas into action. With the com­pe­ti­tion, we encour­age our employ­ees to take that first step, to think out­side the box and show pas­sion. This enables us to solve social prob­lems and at the same time increase our cor­po­rate value.”