Advanced English 1

Reading Comprehension– Seen

February 2022

Scientists Consider Repurposing Robots for Ebola

1. Robotics scientists nationwide are pondering an intriguing possibility: Might robotic

technologies deployed in rescue and disaster situations be quickly repurposed to help
contain the Ebola epidemic? A robot that could perform even some of the tasks of a
human, such as waste removal or the burial of bodies, would have significant lifesaving
potential. So, with the assistance of the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy, scientists are planning a series of brainstorming meetings. The first round will
be held Nov. 7 at four locations: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts;
Texas A&M; the University of California, Berkeley; and in Washington.
2. The problem, scientists say, is that the technology is still limited when it comes to
medicine. While mobile robots now can disarm roadside bombs and drive cars, they are
taking only the first tentative steps toward the human levels of dexterity required in
health care. “You see the situation that the medical teams are facing, and I don’t even
know if a robot is a solution,” said Taskin Padir, an assistant professor of robotics
engineering at Worcester Polytechnic and an organizer of one of the meetings.
3. Still, he has been considering ways to repurpose an existing robot project as a tool for
more safely performing decontamination tasks, like spraying bleach solution on
clothing exposed to infected body fluids. “As was the case in Fukushima, the Ebola
crisis in Africa has revealed a significant gap between robot capabilities and what is
needed in the realm of disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” said Gill A. Pratt, a
roboticist who is a program manager at the federal Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. “We have a moral obligation to try and select, adapt and apply
available technology where it can help, but we must also appreciate the difficulty of the
problem.”
4. Many of the countries experiencing the worst of the Ebola epidemic are in no position
to deploy robots. But rudimentary models are widely used in medical settings in the
United States, and already nervous hospital administrators are reaching out to
manufacturers.
5. The phone has been ringing continually in recent weeks, said Yulun Wang, the chief
executive of InTouch Health, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based maker of telepresence
robots used in hospitals for stroke diagnosis and other medical tasks. Clients like
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Baylor University Hospital are asking
whether the robots can be used to help diagnose Ebola infection, without a human
present, or to facilitate virtual family visits for patients in isolation. “They acquired our
solutions for a very different purpose, and now they are wondering whether they are
applicable for Ebola care,” Mr. Wang said.
6. The company makes a robot that travels around hospital corridors, guided by a
physician at a remote location who “sees” via an Internet-connected device. Normally
used to observe patients with the aid of high-quality video and audio, the robots could
also be programmed to train health care personnel, Mr. Wang said. “There isn’t a lot of
Ebola expertise in the United States,” he said. “We can beam those experts into the
1,000 hospitals that have our systems instantly.”
7. Robots might be programmed to provide interactive checklists to medical personnel
who are putting on and taking off gowns, much in the way aircraft pilots work from
checklists on takeoff and landing. Some experts have also suggested that telepresence
robots might help language interpreters offer assistance in the field. But dexterous
robots that move without human guidance are only beginning to appear in laboratories.
A robot that could work in close contact with a patient, replacing a nurse or a doctor, is
still years away.
8. Humanoid rescue robots were on display in December in Florida at a contest created by
Darpa, part of the Defense Department, which is hoping to spark innovation in the
design of machines that are capable of operating autonomously in hostile environments.
But even the best robot, designed by a group of Japanese researchers, could drive a car
only in a halting fashion, and only after the robot was attached to the steering wheel and
brake and accelerator pedals. The challenges in a health care setting could be even
greater.
9. One small example: Glass beakers and test tubes are extremely challenging for machine
vision systems. Even the newest and least expensive versions, like Microsoft’s Kinect,
struggle to recognize transparent glass objects. Research efforts begun now may not
bear fruit until the next epidemic, according to a number of the researchers.
10. Ken Goldberg, a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at the
University of California, Berkeley, worries that the robotics researchers might seem
 opportunistic if they rush forward with unproven technology. “We don’t want to be
seen as capitalizing on the tragedy,” Dr. Goldberg said. “You don’t want to be seen as,
‘We’re sending in the robots.’ It sounds insensitive and crass.”
11. Scientists also cited cultural obstacles to the adoption of robots for medical uses. “One
of the first things I heard from medical responders is that one of the bottlenecks is in
handling bodies,” said Robin Murphy, a specialist in rescue robotics and a professor of
computer science and engineering at Texas A&M. Families often cannot accept the idea
that a loved one’s body might be handled by a machine. “It’s something we can do, but
it has to be culturally sensitive,” she said.