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the concept of robotic ”liveliness” following their increased
usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby contributing
to robot geographies. Their conceptualization, which is influ-
enced by contemporary materialism, came up with the idea
of liveliness by considering the agential capabilities of robots
in three different ways: seemingly autonomous technologies,
perpetually incomplete and contingent things, and inorganic
and mechanical bodies. They postulated that this concept of
liveliness provides a method that can further criticize their
use in ”caring” roles, an application that is rapidly emerging
in the area of social robotics. They considered numerous in-
stances of their usage even during the pandemic to decipher
the potential for the emergence of robots as ”caring subjects.”
They reasoned that the claim to ”care” inside robotics remains
a major reason for more studies to be conducted on its liveli-
ness. Furthermore, Yang et al. [36] published a study in which
the authors offered a new telerobotic system for remote care
management in isolation wards. That system is made up of
two parts: a teleoperation system and a telepresence system.
They expect to prevent infections by limiting interaction be-
tween infected individuals and medical personnel. In a study
provided by [37] the authors built a novel device, designed
using Unifed Modelling Language (UML) schemes and was
informed by a risk analysis, which highlighted some of its crit-
ical requirements and specifications. As a result, the robotic
system preferred constructive solution, a robotic-arm frame-
work, was built and manufactured utilising computer-aided
design and 3D printing.
E. Remote Surgery Robot
The Research Center for Biomedical Technologies and
Robotics (RCBTR) has begun a large project on the develop-
ment of a laparoscopic telesurgery system. The robot system
is comprised of a master console that can be operated di-
rectly by the surgeon, as well as three slave robots that are
involved in carrying out the procedure on the patient. The
master console also contains two master robots with a mechan-
ical interface shaped in the form of a common laparoscopic
surgery instrument [38]. These mechanical connectors are
used by the surgeon to convey force or motion commands to
the slave system. While using the robot, the haptic capabil-
ities of the master robots ensure that the robot provides the
surgeon with the force input that facilitates the interactions
between the patients and the slave robots. There are three
spherical robots in the slave system, each with four degrees of
freedom and the gripping capability of the laparoscopic tool.
The laparoscope is manipulated by one of the slave robots.
It provides the surgeon with visual feedback via the master
console. Also, a specific laparoscopic end tool is created for
the slave robot, which is completely instrumented to allow for
automatic grasping and safe tissue manipulation. Furthermore,
Sabeeh & Alfurati
a novel grabbing mechanism is used, allowing large as well as
small organs to be handled. The prototype of the telesurgery
system has been built and is undergoing technical testing,
which will be followed by animal clinical trials [39] [40].
F. Cleaning and Disinfection Robots
Cleaning robots are also recommended as a way of prevent-
ing human-to-human contact [41]. They have been shown
to perform ultraviolet surface disinfection in some nations,
achieving 99.99 % disinfection rates within 15 minutes in hos-
pital wards rooms [12]. Hence, the orders for such cleaning
robots are increasing as their efficiency, safety, and efficacy
are anticipated to reach 400 – 600 % [41].
The GermFalcon robot was originally developed for avia-
tion hygiene to improve travel safety has UltraViolet-C (UVC)
light [12] that can eliminate superbugs, bacteria, and viruses.
The UVC light also serves as a germicidal add-on for cleaning
and disinfection of both civil and industrial areas [42]. The
central column of the robot also has eight UVC lights with
two extra lamps on top [43]. The mobile base has several
sensors that can avoid obstacles and measure things like the
temperature and humidity of the working environment.
A study by Cresswell & Sheikh [44] focused on the eval-
uation of the current generation of robots for cleaning and
disinfecting purposes in healthcare settings. The study noted
inefficiencies in the effectiveness of these robots, especially
in dealing with the complex environment in schools and care
homes during the pandemic. To improve the performance
of cleaning robots, a fuzzy logic-based wall-cleaning robot
was developed [45]. The evaluation study showed that the
created fuzzy logic-based robot performed better than the
conventional ones in various wall settings.
An indoor adaptive robotic disinfection method was de-
veloped by Hu et al [46] in which the deep learning-based
object affordance idea was used to map and separate areas
with potential contamination. The potentially contaminated
area directs the robot’s path, and its short-wavelength UV
light executes the required disinfection operation.
IV. RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
As described in Section 3 (Types of medical robots), a sig-
nificant portion of the literature to date consists of conceptual
research concepts or proposals, including robotics during the
pandemic. Only a few of them succeeded in developing viable
approaches and implementing them on real robotic systems.
Robotic arms have been widely used in research achievements
as manipulators and duplicates of human actions, whereas
mobile robots provide the required mobility to facilitate mov-
ing processes such as disinfection, cleaning, distribution, etc.
Naturally, communication technology is crucial for the human-
robot interface. Numerous applications, such as medicine and