A new white paper has been released by the University of Toronto Robotics Institute titled “Making Sense of the Robotized Pandemic Response: A Comparison of Global and Canadian Robot Deployments and Success Factors”. The paper, co-authored by several NCRN members, discusses issues such as why Canada has been cautious to adopt robotics for use in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic; the paper also urges for strategic investment and support in the Canadian Robotics Industry. 

NCRN Principal Investigators Steven Waslander and Angela Schoellig, and NCRN Distal Fellow Florian Shkurti are amongst the paper’s authors. The paper can be found on arXiv, and check out this article for more information. Steven Waslander, Associate Professor at University of Toronto, comments:   

       “An amazing group effort from the faculty of the Robotics Institute at U of T, it highlights how robots can and are helping with the pandemic response, from in-hospital support to disinfection and social distancing, as well as where Canada stands in contributing robotics know how to the fight. I was happy to be able to highlight some of our great partners in the report, and as a result learned a lot about the strong efforts from, for example, Clearpath and Avidbots to bring their autonomy solutions to the disinfection realm.”