UCL MechEng develops droplet tracking robot helping to discover how Covid spreads

Scientists at from UCL Mechanical Engineering and UCLH studying how the virus spreads have developed a robot which tracks how droplets move through the air.

In a world first, it’s being used in a London hospital to track how Covid spreads.

It is hoped the robot can be used in theatres and tubes to discover how Covid-19 spreads. 

Using a super slo-mo camera scientists will be able to monitor what difference things like ventilation, air conditioning and masks have.

Dr Andrea Ducci tells ITV News: “We create some droplets. The droplets getting out of the mouth of our android and then we look at this plume with a laser we can illuminate the droplets and we have a high-speed camera which eventually will capture the position and then we can capture the images.”

With a mask on “you don’t see much” but remove the mask and it is a different story.

Read the full news item on ITV News London.

• Professor Laurence Lovat’s Profile 
• Professor Rama Balachandran’s Profile 
• Dr Andrea Ducci’s Profile 
• Professor Manish Tiwari’s Profile
• UCLH