Anant National University Develops Anant COVID-19 Testing And Oxygen Auto-rickshaw

With the increasing need for testing and portable oxygen facilities, Anant National University, India’s leading design university stepped up to help the country and designed a compact, effective, and contact-free mobile COVID-19 testing and oxygen facility that is the most affordable mobile testing and emergency oxygen facility in the world. The facility is fitted inside a cargo auto-rickshaw.

There are two variations: one is the facility for swab collections and it is priced at 5.1 lakh; while the second is a facility for x-ray testing for COVID-19 and is priced at 11.5 lakh, making these the most affordable facilities of their type in the world and therefore suitable to operate on a mass scale in India. These can both be operated by any government or non-government body that is approved by ICMR to conduct testing activities in their area. The facility only needs a driver and a health worker trained to handle the X-ray machine and oxygen supply.

Owing to the advanced X-ray technology used in the respective facilities as well as the easy door-to-door access of auto-rickshaws even in narrow lanes, the X-ray testing for COVID-19 facility can test 500+ people for COVID-19 in a day. Moderate cases of COVID-19 patients awaiting an ambulance or a hospital bed can benefit from the emergency oxygen supply of the oxygen cylinders installed in the vehicle which can be dropped off at the residence of the patient. Both versions of the auto-rickshaw also come equipped with a stretcher that can be used to transport patients to the hospital. To run the equipment 24x7, a diesel generator is fitted on top of the vehicle.

By retrofitting walls as partitions in the auto-rickshaw, they have created isolation chambers for the patient, health worker, and the driver of the vehicle. In order to maintain high standards of sanitation, the patient area comes with an automated sanitiser spray that is activated by four jet nozzles that thoroughly disinfect the area each time a patient leaves the chamber.

Initiated and led by Dr Miniya Chatterji, Director Anant Centre for Sustainability and CEO Sustain Labs, the Anant COVID-19 Testing and Oxygen Auto-rickshaw has been designed by Dhaval Monani, Director of Affordable Housing and Associate Professor, Anant National University. Joel Fernando, Visual Designer and Multimedia Associate at Anant National University assisted in the development of the prototype. The advisor to this project is Dr Anunaya Chaubey, Provost, Anant National University.

“The testing challenges in India are unique and we have to slash costs and at the same time give as much functionality as possible. We have re-engineered much of the processes to create a unique rugged vehicle that is a hallmark of what we like to term 'frugal innovation',” says Mr Dhaval Monani, Director of Affordable Housing and Associate Professor, AnantU.

Through consultations with a panel of medical experts and research laboratories, the team identified the equipment required for the X-ray testing for COVID-19 facility to give immediate results. The team used the inputs garnered from this consultation process to design a model that can enter the narrowest lanes of India to conduct testing and provide immediate results. The auto-rickshaw is equipped with cutting-edge technology and necessary medical equipment to ensure accuracy and promptness in results.

Dr Miniya Chatterji says, "We need to ensure access to COVID-19 testing for all in India and oxygen for patients across economic segments. We slashed down the cost of the vehicle and instead invested heavily in high-end medical equipment, such as X-ray testing that is contact-free and gives immediate results as well as automated sanitiser sprays. This is in great contrast to popular mobile collections of biospecimens and testing facilities in a bus or truck, where the cost of just the vehicle itself makes mobile collections, testing and mobile oxygen expensive and difficult to scale”

About the initiative, Dr Anunaya Chaubey says, "Being a design and architecture university, we have applied our design thinking knowledge to seek solutions for this pandemic. AnantU has responded fast with answers: visors, temporary hospitals, quarantine facilities including economical and eco-friendly laminated cardboard beds and awareness posters for prevention and treatment. Our latest offering is the 'Anant Mobile COVID-19 Testing and Oxygen Auto-rickshaw', mobile testing and emergency oxygen facility as the name suggests. Our team has shown great foresight whilst designing this COVID-19 testing vehicle, which will be beneficial to a large sum of people."

The team at Anant National University has also been transforming vacant spaces across India into temporary hospitals and quarantine centres. A total of 720 beds have been developed thus far, in an effective and highly affordable manner.