The nucleic acid sampling robot is here. Can we achieve 'nucleic acid freedom'?

In the past few years of the epidemic, keeping the green code has become a top priority for Chinese people, especially Shenzhen people.

The greetings when meeting are not more about "Have you eaten?", but "Have you done nucleic acid?"

After all, the only person who can stop Shenzhen people from continuing to make money now is probably "Enter the office building with the 24-hour nucleic acid green code" came from the loudspeaker.

I believe that many migrant workers in Shenzhen have experienced the shock of working overtime until 11 p.m. and suddenly realizing that they missed the nucleic acid sampling time.

If you tell him at this time that there is an autonomous nucleic acid sampling machine working 24 hours a day downstairs, he will probably jump up with excitement.

How does the nucleic acid sampling robot work?

In the past two days, residents near the Civic Center in Futian District, Shenzhen were the first to experience this joy.

The nucleic acid sampling robots currently in trial operation basically include fully automatic workflows of grabbing, calibration, collection and disinfection.

After autonomously scanning the Cantonese nucleic acid code, the machine will automatically match the test tube barcode. Before sampling, insert the disposable sterile packaged mouthpiece provided by the self-service nucleic acid sampling machine into the machine slot, and then open your mouth and align the mouthpiece , and leave the rest to the robot.

The entire process can be completed in 30 seconds, and it is free in most scenarios.

From a process perspective, self-service nucleic acid sampling is no different from nucleic acid sampling conducted by medical staff: information collection and sampling.

In fact, domestic nucleic acid sampling robots have emerged in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, and their developers have different identities, including traditional robot companies, research institutes, and universities.

There are two important systems closely related to safety behind it, the visual system and the force control system.

A developer from a robotics company in Shenzhen explained the technical principles of the nucleic acid robot. The visual recognition system of the nucleic acid sampling robot marked the tonsils and posterior pharyngeal wall one by one on more than 5,000 samples collected. location and let the machine learn until it can accurately identify the sampling area.

On the force control system, in order to ensure safety during the sampling process, safe working ranges are set for adults and children, and the force threshold is controlled between 0.2 N and 0.3 N. It is not difficult for a robotic arm whose movement accuracy can reach 0.02mm.

In other words, through the nucleic acid sampling robot equipped with two systems of machine vision and highly sensitive automatic force sense control, it can achieve precise positioning through visual recognition, and at the same time, through the force control system, the force can be controlled at just the right level. Collect enough samples to avoid being too heavy-handed.

The self-service nucleic acid sampling machine that landed in Shenzhen this time comes from Shenzhen Bowei Medical Robot. Jin Haiyang, general manager of Bowei, said that the main function of the mouthpiece is to assist in mouth expansion and positioning, and the machine samples through positioning , visual recognition, and control of force sensors to accurately sample the posterior pharyngeal wall.

The demand for sampling is only increasing, and robots are on duty

For individuals, being "stabbed in the throat" every day is a very uncomfortable thing, and for people who have to be stabbed hundreds of times every day For medical workers with thousands of throats, it is undoubtedly a greater torture.

Manual collection inherently exposes medical staff to a greater risk of infection than ordinary people. In the recent sustained high temperature weather, they have to wear strict protective clothing and continue to perform monotonous and high-intensity work. , physically and mentally tested.

However, as the epidemic becomes normalized, the demand for large-scale nucleic acid sampling has only increased.

Nucleic acid sampling robots not only replace manual samplers to complete repeated sampling tasks, share the work pressure of medical staff, but also reduce the risk of cross-infection.

Although the nucleic acid sampling robot cannot completely avoid this risk, its 24-hour standby and mobile advantages can disperse the flow of people, facilitate citizens to flexibly sample, and avoid cross-infection to the greatest extent.

As sample data becomes more and more abundant, nucleic acid sampling robots will have higher efficiency and accuracy than manual sampling.

Moreover, as the demand for large-scale nucleic acid has expanded dramatically, the current uneven team of samplers has also been widely criticized.

According to international requirements, nucleic acid samplers must hold a PCR certificate (i.e. clinical gene amplification test technician employment certificate), nurse certificate or clinical practitioner certificate.

But in reality, similar positions like "nucleic acid sampling assistant" in some second- and third-tier cities no longer require certificates, and some companies do not even require academic qualifications in their recruitment notices.

In contrast, specially trained nucleic acid sampling robots seem to be more reliable.

Problems that cannot be ignored

As an emerging market, the nucleic acid sampling robot industry is still in its early stages of development, and many problems need to be solved.

The first question is, does the nucleic acid sampling robot really improve the sampling efficiency?

At present, the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute has developed a new generation 2.0 version of the "SAIRI Intelligent Mobile Nucleic Acid Sampling Vehicle", which can detect one person every 30 seconds. This speed is at the forefront among nucleic acid robots, but in terms of sampling speed, most robots are still not as good as skilled medical staff.

However, Jin Haiyang explained that the emergence of nucleic acid sampling robots does not completely replace people, but cooperates with them. After sampling, the information is sent to the backend through the 5G module, and the hospital's specially authorized staff will take samples or supplement them.

Secondly, what is the accuracy of machine recognition?

Leifeng.com (public account: Leifeng.com) learned that the machine vision capabilities required by nucleic acid sampling robots are actually not mysterious. As long as there are enough data samples, current artificial intelligence can Do it.

The primary issue is to collect sufficiently rich sample data. Everyone's oral environment is very different. For example, some people have had their tonsils removed, and some people have had tonsils swollen due to a recent fire, etc., which will affect the recognition effect of the machine.

The accuracy of machine identification will gradually increase as the number of users increases. However, judging from the current scale of implementation of nucleic acid sampling robots, there is obviously insufficient sample data.

Extended from the problem of sample collection, how to effectively collect sample data?

Although the mouthpiece physically limits a person's mouth to a smaller range, it is not smart enough from a technical point of view to automatically adjust to the shaking of the human body. Cooperate with the machine.

How the camera can effectively capture, how to light the mouth when the light is too dark, and how to find the most comfortable mouthpiece for different groups of people are all problems.

In addition, how far are nucleic acid robots from large-scale commercialization?

Due to the lack of unified standards at the national level, more and more companies have entered the industry, and nucleic acid sampling robot products are also diverse.

Some are equipped with automatic swab dissecting machines, achieving full non-contact and full automation, while some require manual collaboration; some robots are mounted on intelligent nucleic acid sampling vehicles, and some are fixed in nucleic acid sampling booths ; Some use disposable mouthpieces to fix the sampling range, and some even simplify them into disposable paper cups.

This means that people have to relearn how to use it at each different sampling point. More importantly, the inconsistency in detection costs, accuracy, risk control, and efficiency creates obstacles to backend system design and data uploading.

In view of this, the industry has also begun to voluntarily draft general standards. However, this standard does not have legal effect. It only provides a technical reference for companies that are developing and upgrading throat swab sampling robots.

It is undeniable that the development of nucleic acid sampling robots is still relatively extensive, but an industry insider also said that such a design is so that the product can enter the market as soon as possible.

In order to quickly implement nucleic acid sampling robots, many companies adopt ready-made solutions and directly take robots from industrial assembly lines, slightly modify them, and then put them into use.

In fact, the technology behind nucleic acid sampling robots is not complicated. Applying industrial robots that are expensive to build on the assembly line, are specialized in dealing with complex industrial scenarios, and pursue scale effects in simple nucleic acid sampling scenarios will lead to the investment in production. The output ratio is seriously imbalanced.

There are also some companies that believe that the sampling work itself is not complicated, and using modified industrial robots for nucleic acid sampling is overkill, so they use core components to tailor-make nucleic acid robots. The latter's development process is longer and more complex. It is higher and the landing speed is not as fast as the former, but it is cheaper in price. But even so, a person involved in the research and development revealed that the price of such a machine is around 1 million yuan.

At present, the largest buyer of nucleic acid sampling robots is still the government. This product, which has grown up with the development of the epidemic, seems to still have a long way to go before it can be truly commercialized.

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