Skip to main content

Annual Member Meeting registration now open! Join us Sept. 3-5 in Pittsburgh

Learn more here
ARM Institute
  • About
    • Why the ARM Institute
    • Who We Help
    • Team
    • Careers
    • Locations & Facilities
  • Our Work
    • Overview
    • Membership
    • Robotics Manufacturing Hub
    • Technology Development
    • Program Management
    • Workforce Development
  • Projects
    • All Projects
    • Project Calls
  • News & Events
  • Membership
  • Contact
  • RoboticsCareer.org
  • Member Login

Annual Member Meeting registration now open! Join us Sept. 3-5 in Pittsburgh

Learn more here
ARM Institute
  • RoboticsCareer.org
  • Member Login
  • About
    • Why the ARM Institute
    • Who We Help
    • Team
    • Careers
    • Locations & Facilities
  • Our Work
    • Overview
    • Membership
    • Robotics Manufacturing Hub
    • Technology Development
    • Program Management
    • Workforce Development
  • Projects
    • All Projects
    • Project Calls
  • News & Events
  • Membership
  • Contact

Home › Projects › Mobile Autonomous Industrial Disinfector (MAID)

Mobile Autonomous Industrial Disinfector (MAID)

Background

This project was funded from a special COVID-19 focused Project Call released by the ARM Institute in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense.

The ARM Institute rapidly responded to the Department of Defense’s need to address COVID-19 by forming numerous national teams, drawing from diverse industries and technologies to address the myriad of supply chain shortages. This is highlighted by a few of the key statistics listed below:

  • Rapid contracting with 45 days from the Project Call release to project start
  • Projects executed in 12 months
  • 13 states and Puerto Rico engaged
  • 23 unique organizations participated across the nine projects

Objective

This project catalyzed an automated disinfection solution that will both disinfect and keep records of the cleaning tasks completed.

Technical Approach

Due to the rapid transmutability of COVID-19, frequent surface disinfection is required for businesses and workspaces to operate safely. The current method of manual cleaning is not ideal because it puts another person into the space who could get sick or transmit the virus. This project developed an autonomous mobile robot with a mounted collaborative multi-axis robotic arm capable of manipulating both a disinfection system and a sensor suite. The system identifies areas that need disinfecting, execute the disinfecting process, and keep records of the cleaning tasks completed. 

Impact

The commercially deployed solution is projected to cost less than $100K.

Return-on-investment is projected to take between several weeks to four months, depending on environment size/ complexity and retreatment frequency.

Disinfecting 10,000 ft2  is expected to take just eight hours based on: prototype operating speeds of 2.15 ft2/sec, the 6ft diameter effective UV-C tower, moderate number of areas requiring secondary disinfection/region, using one treatment per region, and handling large spaces with multiple robots.

Participants

Principal Investigator: Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories

Project Team: GrayMatter Robotics, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Lockheed Martin Rotary Mission Systems


Project Type

Technology

Advisor Robot

Autonomy

COVID

Open Source/Open Architecture

Surface Treatment

Path Planning

Year Completed

2021

Project Team

GrayMatter Robotics

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI),

Lockheed Martin Rotary Mission Systems

Principle Investigator

Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories

ARM Institute

The ARM Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network.

Copyright © 2025 Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy

Contact Info

Address

Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute

Mill 19 A 4501 Lytle St., Suite 200
Pittsburgh, PA 15207 USA

Phone

412-785-0444

Fax

412-785-0229

Proud Partner

Social Media

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Website by Imagebox