Mobile Telehealth Robot

The Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE). These shortages combined with the inherently wasteful usage of PPE when treating infectious patients and the huge influx of patients to be treated created a crisis. Healthcare workers were forced to resort to reusing PPE which, in the most extreme cases, resulted in their illness or even death.

Our Solution

As our capstone project for our Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering program, our team created a remotely-controlled healthcare device: R2-MD2. Our device allows for both physical interaction with patient monitoring equipment, as well as remote communication between providers and their patients, all without a provider needing to don PPE. With this device, we aimed to reduce both the cost and waste of PPE in a hospital setting by reducing the number of times physicians need to physically enter treatment rooms.

CAD Models, Animated

Regulatory Submission

To better prepare us for work in the medical device industry, our coursework included a mock regulatory submission with several key documents required by the FDA.

  • A collection of records containing specifications and essential information for a completed medical device

  • A record of the manufacturing history of a specific unit of a medical device

  • A document tracing requirements throughout the development and testing processes

  • Testing that the device meets the requirements specified throughout the design lifecycle

  • Testing to ensure that the device operates as expected: i.e. design outputs meet input requirements

  • A temporary patent application establishing an early priority date for an invention

Spreading the word.

As part of our coursework, we created a video to showcase the capabilities of our device. While a bit tongue-in-cheek, this video is an excellent demonstration of just how fleshed-out this design is, despite being completed in less than two academic semesters.

Design Symposium Poster