July 16, 2020
Piedmont National, together with Fetch Robotics and PURO Lighting launch a new UVGI disinfection solution. With the new SmartGuard UV, several unique and mature elements come together to create a powerful disinfection solution, illustrating how the whole can be better than the sum of its parts.
The new device is purpose-built to autonomously disinfect high-traffic areas such as warehouse facilities, retail stores, offices, and hospital rooms. Solutions provider, Piedmont National has engineered the solution to deliver unparalleled performance in an automation disinfection solution.
The disinfection power leverages PURO Lighting’s pulsed XENON UV light fixtures, powered by Violet Defense™. Unlike the low-pressure mercury UV light bulbs in use by the majority of the other UVGI solutions on the market, pulsed XENON delivers broad-spectrum UV disinfection. This is lab tested and eliminates up to 99.9% of viruses and bacteria with UV-C, UV-B, and UV-A wavelengths.
The system requires as little as 90 seconds to disinfect a 10-foot workstation and as little as six minutes to disinfect priority areas of a personal office. The pulsed Xenon UV lamp technology used in SmartGuard UV AMRs has been tested by independent accredited third-party testing labs, and is registered with the EPA.
Longest Disinfection Run-time on the Market
Piedmont National designed the disinfection payload on the system to include its own batteries, separate from the main Fetch AMR battery in the mobile base. As a result, the solution is capable of disinfection run-times up to 10 hrs, making it the market leader from a light run-time perspective. The system can disinfect up to 250 locations in one shift.
“Legacy autonomous disinfection robotic solutions can only operate for 2 to 2.5 hours on a single charge whereas the PURO pulsed xenon light engines on the SmartGuard UV AMR precisely target UV rays at high touch surfaces so are able to operate for 8 to 10 hours on a single charge," said John Garlock, CSO of Piedmont National. "We believe this combination of targeted disinfection within a space, and longer operational time results in an autonomous disinfection robot is much more effective than other autonomous robots."
Configurable For Different Facility Needs
SmartGuard UV can also be configured with either two or four PURO light fixtures. By doubling the light fixtures, the system can reduce disinfection cycle time, as one light set can operate while the other light set is cooling down. XENON light operates in short bursts, similar to a camera flash, rather than in long “on cycles” as do the low-pressure mercury bulbs. The XENON flashes are higher energy, which also has the added benefit of enhanced reflection characteristics, enabling the light to bounce off walls and windows to reduce shadow effects.
SmartGuard has cameras and sensors in the payload to look for humans in the room before starting a disinfection cycle. The system can also shutdown a disinfection cycle if a human enters the workspace. UV light is hazardous to humans, so this safety feature is critical. The cameras can also snap an image to record the state of any room where an error occurs or when the cycle is interrupted. This enables the facilities team to quickly troubleshoot any situation.
SmartGuard UV Robot in a warehouse (image courtesy of SmartGuard UV)
The solution is able to auto-calculate exposure waypoints within a room to optimize the cleaning cycle and ensure compliance for the 3-log (99.9%) kill percentage on all surfaces in the range of the mobile solution.
Piedmont National believes that they can disinfect a 35K-40K square foot supermarket in an 8 hour night, hitting all of the high touch areas. This includes the entire perimeter, all cash registers, all of the food produce islands, freezer doors, alcohol, and beverage refrigerators.
The science of XENON bulbs is well understood. The light engine has a limited life, but the system counts every burst of light, enabling the solution to determine when it’s time for a light engine replacement and ensuring that every disinfection cycle is effective.
Built on Top of the Fetch Robotics Platform
The entire solution is built on top of Fetch’s standard AMR base and leverages all of the features of Fetch’s cloud-based robotics platform. The system is simple to deploy and can autonomously navigate throughout your facility. It can locate its charging platform when it’s time to recharge, and both the main AMR battery and the payload batteries are charged through the standard Fetch charging base.
Combining the cloud-based features of the Fetch platform with the advanced disinfecting reporting of the Piedmont 4Site cloud analytics platform makes the system simple to operate and track from any computer. Scheduling the cleaning cycle, troubleshooting and recovery is all handled through the cloud-based interface.
Fetch Robotics also recently collaborated with Build with Robots to introduce the BreezyOne spray disinfection solution.
