This talk will summarize the results from a one-year study by Texas A&M sponsored by the National Science Foundation documenting and analyzing how ground, aerial, and even marine robots have been used for clinical care, public safety/public health actions, and non-hospital care. The study shows that robots were effective at protecting healthcare workers and staff from unnecessary exposure, disinfected facilities, allowed workers to scale up to the surge in workload at hospitals and quarantine facilities, sped up delivery of samples and reagents, and enabled families to visit loved ones. The majority of robots were commercially available prior to the pandemic, reducing risk of unreliable robots. There were some cultural differences between different countries that appear to have influenced the use of robots for particular applications. The talk will offer practical suggestions for deploying and working with, or through, robots.

Designed for people looking at Robotics to serve our community in new and exciting ways from a Planning, Public Health and Vulnerable/Isolated Community perspectives.