When Tom Yang and Cecilia Hsu from Ventur Studio were vacationing they found a dirty hotel room with unsanitary conditions and ideas began forming around a hotel cleaning device. Later they found information from the University of Houston that television remotes and light switches are the most contaminated areas of hotel rooms. They cite an average of 112.7 colony-forming units of bacteria per cubic centimeter, with a recommended ceiling for hospitals 5 colony-forming bacteria per cubic centimeter. The team worked on a solution to remove germs from their everyday living spaces but especially their travel spaces. A crowdfunding campaign is currently running for Cleansebot, the bacteria killing robot.
Cleansebot looks like a cross between a Discman from the 80s and a small vacuum robot that scurries across beds and sheets. It has three modes - under blanket, handheld, and power bank. The under blanket mode sees the bot ride along a bed or sheet surface for thirty or sixty minutes, shining a UV light on the surfaces. Handheld mode is meant to clean phones, keyboards, light switches and remotes. The power bank mode has a USB-C connection to provide power for users. Only the under blanket mode requires the handle half of the unit to be removed, exposing the wheels.
Cleansebot has a 130 millimeter diameter with 45 millimeter thickness. The unit weighs 320 grams with the cover and 220 grams without. The four UV-C lights are 1500 microWatt per square centimeter each, at the 254 nanometer wavelength. The 3700 milliAmp hour lithium ion battery runs at 4.2 Volts for three hours on a charge, with a charging time of four hours. Eighteen sensors help to position the bot on a bedsheet and maintain contact without falling off an edge. Tests have been run at the Guang Zhou Institute of Microbiology and the Ghangzhou Testing Center of Industrial Microbiology, showing 99.99% efficiency killing E Coli bacteria - the comments section of the campaign says that European and North American tests are coming.
I've seen pets, beer, LEDs, and weapons riding around on top of robotic cleaning devices, so placing UV lights on top of the device to clean doesn't seem like a stretch. What I would like to discover more about, though, is the patent pending suspension technology that allows the bot to scurry over a soft lumpy surface without falling over, getting tangled in the fabric, or falling off the edge. When visiting the campaign page, it took me a few viewing to get over the scurrying cockroach motion of the robot under the sheets, and then I was hit with the E Coli bacteria demonstration soon after - this is not a place for engineers with weak stomachs. The campaign is already successful and ends on January 6, 2019.