Scientists have developed game-changing robotics technology that can provide remote medical treatment to casualties in high-risk emergency environments, such as humanitarian disasters.

Using medical telexistence (MediTel) technology, which allows for a highly realistic sensation of existence in remote places without actual travel, a team at the University of Sheffield, UK, successfully created a mobile, robotic-controlled uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV).

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The UGV boasts of virtual reality (VR) capability and can enable medics and operators to assess critical casualties in hazardous environments, allowing them to perform a remote triage while also ensuring their safety.

The first-of-its-kind, fully integrated medical telexistence solution was developed in just nine months. It features two robotic arms which can effectively remotely operate medical tools to perform a critical initial assessment of a casualty within 20 minutes, including: temperature, blood pressure and heart rate checks; carry out a palpation of the abdomen and administer pain relief through an auto-injector — all while streaming real time data to the remote operator.

“Our MediTel project has demonstrated game-changing medical telexistence technology that has the potential to save lives and provide remote assessment and treatment of casualties in high-risk environments such as humanitarian disasters,” said David King, Head of Digital Design at the varsity’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC).

His team developed a complete solution to perform a triage of casualties in hazardous environments. They are now looking to build on the project’s success by seeking further funding and partners to realise the potential of MediTel medical telexistence technology to revolutionise how people could be medically triaged in dangerous incidents where it is unsafe.

The team noted that the future vision of MediTel would be to explore the development of the technology into a large-scale integrated medical emergency platform, capable of rapidly being deployed to humanitarian disasters with multiple casualties and enabling remote medics to provide critical lifesaving treatment.