Autonomous Surface Selection For Manipulator-Based UV Disinfection In Hospitals Using Foundation Models

Abstract-- Ultraviolet (UV) germicidal radiation is an established non-contact method for surface disinfection in medical environments. Traditional approaches require substantial human intervention to define disinfection areas, complicating automation, while deep learning-based methods often need extensive fine-tuning and large datasets, which can be impractical for large-scale deployment. Additionally, these methods often do not address scene understanding for partial surface disinfection, which is crucial for avoiding unintended UV exposure. We propose a solution that leverages foundation models to simplify surface selection for manipulator-based UV disinfection, reducing human involvement and removing the need for model training. Additionally, we propose a VLM-assisted segmentation refinement to detect and exclude thin and small non-target objects, showing that this reduces mis-segmentation errors. Our approach achieves over 92% success rate in correctly segmenting target and non-target surfaces, and real-world experiments with a manipulator and simulated UV light demonstrate its practical potential for real-world applications. The use of ultraviolet (UV) germicidal radiation as a non-contact approach for disinfection is well known and there is ample research in recent years that have proven their effectiveness to sterilise surfaces in medical environments [1, 2], especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.