Kitchener-based robotics company, Cobionix, has developed an AI-powered robotics system to improve healthcare delivery.
Co-founded by Waterloo Engineering alumnus Dr. Tim Lasswell (MASc '17, mechanical engineering and BASc '14, mechanical engineering), the company's robot, called Codi, aims to reduce costs and procedure times and increase access to diagnostic imaging.
Codi's purpose is to eliminate the need for dedicated health professionals to be in rooms for non-complex procedures – with remote technicians keeping a watchful eye.
“We have human monitoring, human supervising to ensure that if the robot is unable to perform a certain task, a human can jump in and assist. And really it's analogous to self-checkout lanes at the grocery store,” said Lasswell in a news release.
It will be another few years before these robots hit the market. But Codi has already delivered the world's first autonomous intramuscular injection and another first is on the way – autonomous ultrasounds.
“Our platform is essentially the brains and the body of the system. And we just replace the hand of the robot depending on the specific task," added Lasswell.
Cobionix is powered by Velocity, the University of Waterloo's startup accelerator program.