
Chinese-built robot that can do quick Covid-19 oral swab tests, other pandemic-related automata shine in Beijing tech show
- Covid-19 and healthcare-related robotic applications made up a quarter of 36 new machines featured at the annual World Robot Conference in Beijing
- That reflects the urgency of putting robots on the front lines to help human workers deal with Covid-19 control measures being enforced across China
While work on that robot started in 2020, Wang said CASIC needed to overcome several technical challenges, such as adjusting the robotic arm’s power upon touching a person’s throat and completely disinfecting after each test, before the machine was exhibited in public.
Conference attendees on Thursday also flocked to see another machine that collects Covid-19 oral swab samples built by Siasun Robot & Automation Co, a Shenzhen-listed company under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The interest in machines for pandemic prevention and medical care at this year’s World Robot Conference, which concludes on August 21, reflects the urgency of putting these robots on the front lines to help human workers deal with Covid-19 control measures that are being enforced across China.
Deploying a robot to perform those tests will not only relieve frontline workers from such stressful, repetitive occupation, it can also help reduce the risk of medical staff getting infected, according to Wang from CASIC.

This year’s edition of the World Robot Conference in Beijing has expanded the exhibition area for healthcare robots by a significant amount from last year, according to Liang Liang, a deputy secretary general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, without elaborating. The institute is one of the organisers of the annual conference.

The annual event, which started from 2015, is jointly hosted by the Beijing municipal government, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the China Association for Science and Technology to showcase the country’s latest breakthroughs in robotics applications.

But the road to profitability remains bumpy for many Chinese robotics companies even as the country has been the top industrial robot consumer for eight consecutive years, according to a report published on Thursday by Shanghai-based venture capital firm Yunqi Partners. It said China’s “robot density” stands at 246 robots per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, or nearly double the worldwide average.
“The essence of business is to make money, so from this perspective, the entire industry didn’t meet the basic standard,” Pudu founder and chief executive Felix Zhang Tao said in a leaked internal letter in July.
