A Radiology Department's UVC Robot Disinfects a CT Room in Under 15 Minutes

Turnover that cannot wait

A radiology department runs on turnover. A CT room that has just handled a patient who may carry an infectious agent cannot take the next patient until it is cleared, and every minute of waiting pushes the schedule back for everyone behind it.

The usual sequence meant closing the room, wiping the surfaces by hand, checking the table and gantry, and reopening. Manual wiping stretched the clock, and the hard to reach spots were still hard to verify by hand.

• Turnaround after a possibly infectious patient held up the next scheduled exam
• Hard to reach places can hold high concentrations of microbial load
• Cramped rooms leave little space for bulky cleaning equipment
• Repeat wiping competes with staff time needed for patient care

Testing a robot inside a working imaging suite

The department placed a UVC robot in a CT and X-ray room and timed its cycles against current practice. The robot was designed to be deployed alongside human workers and to operate autonomously in cramped rooms, which matters in a suite packed with equipment.

The work asked three questions: how long a full room cycle took, whether measurable microbes were inactivated on each surface, and how the robot compared with the chemical approach used for rooms after infectious or potentially infectious patients. A second hospital ran a CT room cycle as well.

• Deploy the robot in a CT and X-ray room alongside existing staff
• Time full cycles and compare them with current practice for rooms after infectious or potentially infectious patients
• Measure microbial load across 24 surfaces after the cycle
• Repeat a CT room cycle at a second hospital

Fast cycles, with a clear limit on two surfaces

The headline figure is time. The robot disinfected a CT room in under 15 minutes, and the researchers estimated it was two to four times faster than current practice for rooms after infectious or potentially infectious patients. For a department that books rooms back to back, that gap separates a cleared room from a delayed afternoon list.

Surface results were strong but not total. The UVC cycle inactivated all measurable microbial load on 22 of 24 surfaces. The remaining two surfaces saw microbial load reduced by 84% and 95%. That is a major cut, but not complete inactivation, so those spots still call for a planned manual step after the robot finishes.

What this means for a facility planning a UVC robot

Service Robot Co. is an OEM neutral robot integrator for US businesses. We select the right robot across manufacturers, then lease it on a three year lease with one fixed payment quoted after a site assessment. We deploy and integrate each unit, train staff, and service it through a nationwide US engineer network, so a hospital or imaging group works with one partner and one number.

Published figures are a starting point, not a quote. The UVD Robots product blog, checked as of October 2026, says its robot maps and disinfects a room in about 15 to 20 minutes and claims it is 2.5 times faster than other approaches. RobotLAB's disinfection page, also checked as of October 2026, lists 10 to 30 minute cycles per room. Both are vendor reported, so a site assessment that times cycles in your own rooms, scoped with infection control staff, is the fair way to compare them.