Dr. Conor Mc Ginn

Summary

Ridding rooms of harmful germs (including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19) remains a pressing concern in our hospitals, as well as other settings that are re-opening their doors to people after the pandemic. Currently, disinfecting rooms is a labour-intensive task that is prone to high levels of human error, since we cannot see the germs that need to be cleaned away. Additionally, scrubbing surfaces will not counter aerosolised viruses in small droplets in the air. Hospitals, nursing homes, and many other places must now be thoroughly cleaned on a much more frequent basis than ever before. But manual cleaning is time-intensive and puts pressure on resources, as well as potentially exposing cleaners to infectious disease. Robot disinfection systems that use UV light to zap germs have emerged as a promising technology in the fight against COVID-19. They are effective on surfaces and in air, and do not leave behind harmful or toxic residues. The research will examine the primary factors that affect the germ-killing performance and occupational safety of UV disinfection robots in use at hospitals and other real-world settings. The project will generate new insights critical for informing where, how and when UV disinfection technology can be best and most effectively integrated within infection control systems in hospitals and other frontline settings. This will help lead to a scalable new cleaning system that will help keep our buildings cleaner and our staff safer.

Funding Agency

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)

Programme

COVID-19 Rapid Response

Summary

This project addresses the need to increase the quality of care and operational efficiency of assisted living provision, especially in applications concerning the elderly. The innovation describes a robotic solution that leverages a combination of autonomous and human controlled elements, which can perform multiple custodial care functions in communal assisted living facilities. The research underpinning the innovation has been under on-going development over for nearly a decade by robotics researchers in Trinity College. The key objective of the project is to advance the TRL level of the Stevie robot, bringing it closer to being compliant with the relevant technical standards and data protection regulations. The second major objective is to validate the system, particularly user acceptance, in a real US-based assisted living facility through multiple pilot deployments.

Funding Agency

Enterprise Ireland

Programme

Commercialisation Fund for 3rd Level Researchers

Summary

Social isolation is a major problem for people living alone, especially the elderly and those living with disabilities. A compelling solution to this problem is the development of technology that can help keep people socially connected and mentally stimulated. Anthropomorphic social robots have great potential for promoting cognitive engagement and combating social isolation, especially if they can operate as a medium to connect people with the outside world. Their features/form facilitate natural interactions, communication of affective states and provide high levels of redundancy. However, controlling these systems, either autonomously or manually by a human operator, remains a major research challenge. Artificial social intelligence, as applied to service robots, is currently in its early stages of development and it is expected to take many more years before robots will be capable of achieving even basic levels of social competence in unstructured settings. A more practical, yet equally compelling approach is to explore how the quality of remote social interaction between two (or more) people can be enhanced using robots to mediate human-human communication.

Funding Agency

Trinity College Dublin

Programme

Provosts PhD Award

Summary

Increasingly robots are being developed to perform tasks outside of the traditional industrial setting, such as in warehouses, hospitals and in the home. Unlike industrial robots that are configured to perform few defined tasks, it is often desirable for modern robots to be highly adaptable and capable of multi-purpose use. These environments are often more stochastic in nature, requiring the robot to possess real-time control capabilities and increased levels of environmental perception. In these scenarios, tasks requiring robots to grasp objects autonomously become increasingly difficult often due to poor perceptual awareness in the local region of the object being grasped. The central aim of this research is to demonstrate that by incorporating a variety of exteroceptive sensors in the gripper and adopting a decentralised control approach, improved sensor data can be generated, and better grasping performance achieved.

Funding Agency

Irish Research Council

Summary

Mobile robots have traditionally struggled to demonstrate robust terrain adaptability across the spectrum of everyday human-centred environments. Wheeled and legged robot morphologies are the common forms of choice yet both suffer critical drawbacks which has limited their use and rate of adoption. Incorporating the best of both wheeled and legged systems into a single platform (hybrid) has shown promising results in this field. The experimentation of hybrid robot platforms is a relatively new and growing occurrence in the literature and is thus a comparatively unexplored area in relation to purely legged platforms with regards to how these systems can be optimally designed, developed and controlled. This research aims to address this gap in the literature. In doing so, state of the art developments and design philosophies that facilitated the creation of some of the best performing robots today will be explored and advanced for the special dynamics and control problem for hybrid systems.

Funding Agency

Irish Research Council